In Religion’s Name

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Militants burn down Shia houses on August 26, 2012, in the village of Nangkernang in Sampang regency, Madura Island. Hundreds of Sunni militants associated with the Ulema Consensus Forum torched around 50 Shia homes that day, killing one man and seriously injuring another, as several police officers looked on.

Summary

We get nervous every time we go to the mosque, especially
those with children. We’re afraid to bring them. We also have Sunday
school which now is done [in private homes]. We are very afraid. The women
often don’t come to pray if we see people in white robes [worn by several
militant Islamist groups in West Java].

−Titik
Sartika, the head of an Ahmadiyah women’s group in Bekasi, West Java, on
intimidation that her community faces from Islamist militants, November 2011.

On February 6, 2011, in
Cikeusik, a village in western Java, around 1,500 Islamist militants attacked
two dozen members of the Ahmadiyah religious community with stones, sticks, and
machetes. The mob shouted, “You are
infidels! You are heretics!” As captured on video, local police were
present at the scene but many left when the crowd began descending on the
Ahmadiyah house. By the time the attack was over, three Ahmadiyah men had been
bludgeoned to death.

Ahmad Masihuddin, a
25-year-old Ahmadiyah student, recalled, “They held my hands and cut my
belt with a machete. They cut my shirt, pants, and undershirt. I was only in my
underwear. They took 2.5 million rupiah (US$270) and my Blackberry [cell
phone]. They tried to take off my underwear and cut my penis. I was laying in
the fetal position. I tried to protect my face, but my left eye was stabbed.
Then I heard them say, ‘He is dead, he is dead.’”

While the Cikeusik attack was particularly gruesome, it is
part of a growing trend of religious intolerance and violence in Indonesia.
Targets have included Ahmadis (the Ahmadiyah), Baha’is, Christians, and
Shias, among others. There have also been cases of Christians in Christian-majority
areas preventing Sunni Muslim mosques from being built. Affected individuals
have ranged from people with permits to build houses of worship to those
seeking to have their actual religion listed on their ID cards, to children
bullied by teachers and other pupils at school.

In important respects,
Indonesia is rightly touted for its religious diversity and tolerance. Since
President Suharto was forced to step down in 1998, after more than three
decades in power, inaugurating an era of greater freedom in Indonesia,
viewpoints long repressed have emerged into the open. A strong thread of
religious militancy is among them. As detailed in this report, the government
has not responded decisively when that intolerance is expressed through acts of
harassment, intimidation, and violence, which often affect freedom of
expression and association, creating a climate in which more such attacks can
be expected.

According to the
Jakarta-based Setara Institute, which monitors religious freedom in Indonesia,
there were 216 cases of violent attacks on religious minorities in 2010, 244
cases in 2011, and 264 cases in 2012.[1]
The Wahid Institute, another Jakarta-based monitoring group, documented 92
violations of religious freedom and 184 incidents of religious intolerance in
2011, up from 64 violations and 134 incidents of intolerance in 2010.[2]

In researching this report, Human Rights Watch interviewed
16 members of religious minorities who had been physically assaulted by
Islamist militants in seven separate incidents−four of them sustaining serious
injuries. Twenty-two others had their houses of worship or own houses burned
down in six separate incidents. We also summarize here many more incidents
reported in the press or documented by other investigators. In addition to
intimidation and physical assaults, houses of worship have been closed, construction
of new worship facilities halted, and adherents of minority faiths subjected to
arbitrary arrest on blasphemy and other charges.

In most cases, the
perpetrators of the intimidation and violence have been Sunni militant groups−described throughout this report as Islamist groups−at times acting with the tacit, or occasionally open,
support of government officials and police. Groups that have participated in or
supported the targeting of minority religions include: the Islamic
People’s Forum (Forum Umat Islam, FUI), the Indonesian Muslim
Communication Forum (Forum Komunikasi Muslim Indonesia, known as Forkami), the
Islamic Defenders Front (Front Pembela Islam, FPI), Hizbut-Tahrir Indonesia,
and the Islamic Reformist Movement (Gerakan Islam Reformis, Garis). These
groups are united by their espousal of an interpretation of Sunni Islam that
labels non-Muslims, excluding Christians and Jews, as “infidels,”
and labels Muslims who do not adhere to what they define as Sunni orthodoxy as
“blasphemers.”

The harassment and violence directed at minority religious
groups is facilitated by a legal architecture in Indonesia that purports to
maintain “religious harmony,” but in practice undermines religious
freedom. Indonesia’s 1945 constitution explicitly guarantees freedom of
religion, as does the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to
which Indonesia is a party. However, the Indonesian government has long
enacted, and in recent years strengthened, legislation and regulations that have
subjected minority religions to official discrimination and made them extremely
vulnerable to the members of the majority community who take the law into their
own hands.

In numerous instances
documented in this report, harassment and intimidation of minority communities
by militant Islamist groups has been facilitated by the active or passive
involvement of Indonesian government officials and security forces. These
groups have cooperated with, or applied pressure on, local authorities to
prevent the issuance of building permits for religious minorities’ houses
of worship, sought the removal of religious minority communities to new
locations, or to stop them from worshipping in their area altogether. In some
cases, Christian churches that have met all of the legal requirements for
construction have had their permits revoked by local authorities after pressure
from Islamist groups, even in the face of Indonesian Supreme Court decisions
ruling the construction legal.

This report also documents
incidents in which police failed to take action to prevent violence against
religious minorities or provided no assistance in the aftermath of such
incidents. Police all too often have been unwilling to properly investigate
reports of violence against religious minorities, suggesting complicity with
the perpetrators. Nor has the justice system proven to be a defender of
religious minorities. In the few cases of violence that have gone to the
courts, prosecutors have sought ridiculously lenient sentences for the perpetrators
of serious crimes, which the judges seem content to oblige. The exception has
been cases construed by authorities as acts of “terrorism,” as with
the bombing of a church in Solo, Central Java, on September 25, 2011, in which
a suicide bomber died and the wife of its funder is still being prosecuted for
money laundering, and an attempt to bomb another church in Serpong in April
2012, in which 19 people were arrested.

Indonesia’s religious minorities also face entrenched
discrimination in their dealings with the Indonesian government bureaucracy.
During the Suharto era, Indonesians were required to list their religion on
their national identification cards, choosing from one of five recognized
religions, a practice that discriminated against, and put in an untenable
position, followers of hundreds of minority religions. Although the current
Population Administration Law gives citizens the choice of whether or not to
declare their religious faith on their ID cards, those who wish to declare a
faith still must choose from a list of six protected religions. Individuals who
do not declare a religion risk being labeled “godless” by some
Muslim clerics and officials and subject to possible blasphemy prosecution. In
2012 alone, a self-declared atheist, a Shia cleric, and a spiritualist have all
been jailed for blasphemy after listing Islam as their religion on their ID
cards.

Indonesian government
institutions have also played a role in the violation of the rights and
freedoms of the country’s religious minorities. Those institutions, which
include the Ministry of Religious Affairs, the Coordinating Board for
Monitoring Mystical Beliefs in Society (Badan Koordinasi Pengawas Aliran
Kepercayaan Masyarakat, Bakor Pakem) under the Attorney General’s Office,
and the semi-official Indonesian Ulama Council, have eroded religious freedom
by issuing decrees and fatwas (religious rulings) against members of religious
minorities and using their position of authority to press for the prosecution
of “blasphemers.”

Indonesia has in recent years
made meaningful progress toward strengthening democracy and respect for human
rights. Those gains, along with perceptions of Indonesia as a bulwark of a
progressive, moderate Islam, have prompted international praise of Indonesia as
a model Islamic democracy. For instance, in November 2010, US President Barack
Obama, when visiting Jakarta, praised “the spirit of religious tolerance
that is enshrined in Indonesia’s constitution, and that remains one of
this country’s defining and inspiring characteristics.”

If that reputation is to
remain intact, strong and immediate action is needed, including more forceful
leadership by Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to reform the laws
and government practices that have facilitated abuses against religious minorities.
The Indonesian government needs to meet its obligations to hold accountable
police, government officials, and members of groups implicated in the abuses.
Indonesia’s reputation as a country “underpinned by the principle
of religious freedom and tolerance” can only be realized if the
government takes steps to curb the increasing targeting of and discrimination
against religious minorities, returning to its founding principles, and
fostering a national culture of acceptance and respect for all religious
groups.

Key Recommendations

President Susilo Bambang
Yudhoyono has been inconsistent at best in defending the right to religious
freedom. The absence of leadership has emboldened groups willing to use
violence against religious minorities and the local and national officials who
cater to them. Indonesia’s constitution explicitly guarantees freedom of
religion, and decentralization laws leave authority over religious freedom with
the central government. What is most needed is the political will to wield that
authority. Despite occasional positive rhetoric, however, President Yudhoyono
has responded weakly to growing intolerance and acts of violence against
religious minorities, has not insisted firmly that national laws be enforced,
and has often been unwilling to use his powers as president to see that the
laws be enforced.

More decisive leadership is urgently needed. Human Rights
Watch supports the call for President Yudhoyono to work with parliament to
devise and implement a national strategy on religious tolerance and religious
freedom.[3]
The effort should be led by an independent national taskforce composed of
experts and politically influential individuals committed to religious freedom
and not beholden to the existing Ministry of Religious Affairs hierarchy. The
task force should be given a strong mandate and the resources necessary to
produce a plan of action. Key elements of such a plan of action should include:

Zero tolerance for attacks on
religious minorities. Every attack on religious minority communities
should be prosecuted.

Active measures against local
officials who fail to respect court judgments guaranteeing religious
freedom, including construction of houses of worship. The task force and
President Yudhoyono should work to ensure that obstruction of justice is
made grounds for suspending local officials from public office when new
local government laws are being drafted, and should press parliament to
pass specific contempt of court legislation.

Review of existing laws, regulations, and decrees on
religion to identify provisions at odds with freedom of religion and
freedom of conscience, followed by a timetable for revision or repeal of
offending provisions.

National outreach on basic principles of religious freedom
and religious tolerance, including education programs disseminated through
government media and schools, and stronger policies and responses to
incitement to violence targeting religious minorities, including greater
clarity on when freedom of expression crosses the line into incitement to
violence.

Even before a taskforce is convened and a national strategy
on religious freedom and religious tolerance is adopted, President Yudhoyono
should:

Direct the police to respond
more decisively to acts of religious violence, focusing on perpetrators of
violence rather than targets of the violence, with sentences for
perpetrators commensurate with the gravity of their crimes.

Take immediate disciplinary
action against all government officials, including the minister of
religious affairs, who make statements or engage in actions that promote
religious discrimination or condone violence.

Use existing presidential powers, including over central
government allocation of funds to local governments, to sanction local
officials who defy the courts.

Glossary

Ahmadiyah

An Islamic
religious revivalist movement, founded in Qadian, Punjab, originating with
the teachings of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad (1835–1908). In Arabic, Ahmadiyah
means “followers of Ahmad” and adherents are sometimes called
“Ahmadis.” It began its presence in the Indonesian Sumatra Island
in 1925. It was legally registered in Jakarta in 1953.

Baha’i

The
Baha’i religion was established by Bahaullah (1817-1892) in Baghdad in
1863. President Sukarno banned Baha’ism in 1962. President Abdurrahman
Wahid revoked the ban in 2001.

Bakor Pakem

Coordinating
Board for Monitoring Mystical Beliefs in Society (Badan Koordinasi Pengawas
Aliran Kepercayaan Masyarakat) under the Attorney General’s Office with
branches in every province and regency under public prosecutors’
offices.

Darul Islam

Armed
movement established in Garut, West Java, in 1949 to set up an Islamic state
in Indonesia. In Arabic, Dar al-Islam means house or abode of Islam
and is commonly used to refer to an Islamic state. In Indonesian, it is
usually spelled “Darul Islam.”

Dewan Dakwah

Indonesian
Council of Islamic Propagation (Dewan Dakwah Islamiyah Indonesia, DDII), an
Islamist organization dedicated to dakwah (an Arabic-derived term
referring to efforts to propagate the Islamic faith) and to face
“challenges” posed by other religions including Christianity,
Buddhism, Hinduism, and spiritual movements. It was established in 1967 in
Jakarta.

Indonesian
Christian Church in the Jasmine Garden housing complex (Gereja Kristen
Indonesia Taman Yasmin) in Bogor, a town just south of Jakarta.

Golkar

Golongan
Karya (Functional Group), a political party founded in 1964 with the backing
of senior army officers. It was the ruling party during President
Suharto’s 33-year rule (1965-1998).

HKBP

Batak
Protestant Christian Church (Huria Kristen Batak Protestan)

KPK

Corruption
Eradication Commission (Komisi Pemberantasan Korupsi)

KWI

Bishops’
Conference of Indonesia (Konferensi Waligereja Indonesia)

Masyumi

Consultative
Council of Indonesian Muslims (Majelis Syuro Muslim in Indonesia), a
coalition of Muslim groups set up during the Japanese occupation of Indonesia
during World War II. It was banned by Sukarno in August 1960.

MPR

People’s
Consultative Assembly (Majelis Permusyawaratan Rakyat, MPR)

Muhammadiyah

A Sunni
Muslim reformist organization established in 1912 in Yogyakarta, Central
Java. One of the largest mass organizations in Indonesia. It has hundreds of
hospitals and schools (pesantren) throughout Indonesia. In Arabic, Muhammadiyah
means “followers of Muhammad.”

MUI

Indonesian
Ulama Council (Majelis Ulama Indonesia)

Nahdlatul Ulama

A
traditionalist Sunni Islam organization, established in 1926 in Jombang, East
Java. It claims to have 45-50 million members, making it the largest Muslim
social organization in the world. It has hundreds of Islamic boarding schools
mostly in Java but also on other islands.

Pancasila

An
Indonesian statement of political principle or philosophy (literally, “five
principles”), articulated at independence in 1945, consisting of five
“inseparable” principles: belief in the One and Only God (thereby
legitimizing several world religions and not just Islam), a just and
civilized humanity, the unity of Indonesia, democracy, and social justice. It became the state ideology under President Suharto and
promotion of alternative ideologies was considered subversion. While now more
rarely invoked by officials in such a blatantly ideological fashion, it
continues to be a key reference point in discussions of religions and
religious pluralism in Indonesia today.

Justice
Party (Partai Keadilan), a political party in Indonesia modeled on the Muslim
Brotherhood in Egypt. The party name later was changed to Prosperous Justice
Party (Partai Keadilan Sejahtera).

PPP

United
Development Party (Partai Pembangunan Indonesia)

Sekarmadji Maridjan Kartosoewirjo

Founder of
Darul Islam (1905-1962)

Shia Islam

The second
largest denomination of Islam. In Arabic, Shia is the short form of the
phrase Shīʻatu ʻAlī, meaning “followers
of Ali”−a reference to Ali ibn AbiTalib (656–661), the
son-in-law of the Prophet Mohammad. Shia members believe that Ali was the
most legitimate successor to Mohammad.

Sunni Islam

The
largest branch of Islam. In Arabic it is known as Ahl ūs-Sunnah wa
āl-Jamāʿah or “people of the tradition
of Mohammad and the consensus of the Ummah.” Sunni members believe that
Mohammad’s successors were successively four caliphs: Abu Bakr, Umar
al-Khattab, Uthman ibn Affan, and Ali ibn AbiTalib. Most of Indonesian
Muslims are Sunni followers.

YAPI

Islamic
Pesantren Foundation (Yayasan Pesantren Islam), a Shia school in Bangil, East
Java.

Methodology

This report is based on research between August 2011 and
December 2012. Human Rights Watch researchers conducted interviews in 10
provinces, on the islands of Java, Madura, Sumatra, and Timor. Sites were
chosen based on areas where incidents of violence against religious minorities
had been reported in the media or by civil society organizations.

We also spoke with 26 religious leaders, 7 police officers,
5 leaders of militant groups, 5 private lawyers, and a prosecutor. Interviews
were also conducted with experts at the Indonesian Conference on Religions and
Peace, the International Crisis Group, the Setara Institute, the Wahid
Institute in Jakarta, and the Legal Aid Institute in Padang.

Interviews were conducted in English, Indonesian, Javanese,
Madurese, and Sundanese. Individual interviews and group interviews were
conducted in the native language of the interviewee. Where necessary,
translation from Indonesian to English or from Sundanese to Indonesian was
undertaken with the assistance of an interpreter. Interviews consisted of
series of open-ended questions.

Human Rights Watch researchers also analyzed multiple
secondary sources including more than 3,000 pages of government letters, court
documents, police reports, photos and NGO reports. All interviews were
voluntary and interviewees were informed of the purpose of the interview, and
the way in which the data would be used. Individuals who are named in this
report gave their consent. All teenagers who were victims of violence and some
adult victims have had their names withheld in the report due to security
concerns. Interviewees did not receive any material compensation. All documents
cited in the report are publicly available or on file with Human Rights Watch.

I. Religion and the State since Independence

Post-Independence
Debates

Indonesia’s constitution of 1945 explicitly promises
the right to religious freedom under article 29(2): “The state guarantees
each and every citizen the freedom of religion and of worship in accordance
with his religion and belief.” This guarantee was borne from debate on
religious diversity that began in what was then the Dutch Indies in the 1920s,[4]
and was sharpened by the exploitation of religious differences during the
period of Japan’s military occupation of Indonesia from 1942 to 1945.[5]

The Republic of Indonesia declared its independence on
August 17, 1945. Sukarno, the leader of the independence movement and the
country’s first president, declared his vision of Indonesia as a
god-fearing state but one that protects the rights of all religions. Essential
to this vision was Sukarno’s concept of Pancasila (“the five
principles”), which became a pillar of Indonesian identity, enshrined in
the opening of the constitution. Sukarno argued that Pancasila was
essential to ensure the unity of the nation and the equality of all Indonesian
citizens:

Pancasila was the product of intense debate among the
founders of independent Indonesia. Muslim leaders criticized Sukarno’s Pancasila
as too inclusive, and for prioritizing religious pluralism over the centrality
of the Quran for Indonesia’s Muslim-majority population. Some advocated a
much more explicit and politically central role for Islam than that allowed
under Pancasila.[7]

Sukarno, however, reasoned that religious tolerance was the
key to Indonesia’s unity, and that religious discrimination could split
the nation. In a speech at the University of Indonesia in 1953, he stated:

If we establish a state based on Islam, many areas whose
population is not Islamic, such as the Moluccas, Bali, Flores, Timor, the Kei
Islands, and Sulawesi, will secede. And West Irian, which has not yet become
part of the territory of Indonesia, will not want to be part of the Republic.[8]

After the founding of Indonesia in 1945 and the adoption of
the Pancasila principles, some militant groups tried to declare parts of
Indonesia an Islamic state. On August 7, 1949, one such group, calling itself
“Darul Islam,” announced the formation of a new Islamic State of
Indonesia, Negara Islam Indonesia, in West Java. That insurrection, which the
Indonesian government smothered, sparked a decade of violence between Islamist
secessionist fighters and the Indonesian military which resulted in the deaths
of some 11,000 people between 1953 and 1958 alone.[9]

Sukarno continued to express his commitment to religious
pluralism. In his 1953 speech, he referred specifically to Indonesia’s
largest religious minority, Christianity, but with a vision that extended to
all religious minorities:

Not one, not three, not a hundred, but thousands of
Christians died in the struggle to defend freedom. What is to happen to the
hopes of the Christians? Should we not value their sacrifices, too? Their hope
is to be with all of us members of a united and free Indonesian people. Do not
use the term “minority,” no! The Christians do not want to be
called a minority. We have not fought to be called minorities. The Christians
say: “We have not sacrificed our sons to be called a minority.” Is
that what you want? What everyone wants is to become a citizen of one free
state, the United Republic of Indonesia. It is the same with me, with the
ulamas [clerics], the youth, the officials, everyone without exception:
everyone wants to be citizen of the Republic of Indonesia, everyone, without
any minorities or majorities.[10]

In 1955 Indonesia held its first elections, with citizens
voting for members of the national parliament and the Constitutional Assembly,
the constitution-making body. Sukarno’s Indonesian National Party (Partai
Nasional Indonesia, PNI) won a plurality with 22.3 percent of the vote.
Masyumi, a coalition of Muslim groups founded in 1943, campaigned to implement
Sharia law and came in second, with 21 percent.

Obscure and has nothing to say to the soul of the Muslim
community which already possesses a definite, clear and complete ideology, one
which burns in the hearts of the Indonesian people as a living inspiration and
source of strength, namely Islam. To exchange the Islamic ideology for
Pancasila is, for Muslims, like leaping from the solid earth into empty space,
into vacuum.[11]

In July 1959, Sukarno disbanded the Constitutional Assembly,
revived the 1945 constitution, and introduced “Guided Democracy”−a concept that proved
to be a justification for authoritarian rule.[12] In the
early 1960s, Muslim conservatives persuaded the Sukarno government to take
action against mystical sects, including native faiths like Sunda Wiwitan,
which “tarnished” Islam.[13] On
January 27, 1965, Sukarno issued a presidential decree that prohibited
individuals from being hostile toward other religions or committing blasphemy−defined as
“abuse” and “desecration” of a religion. Sukarno also
decreed that the government would steer “mystical sects … toward a
healthy way of thinking and believing in the One and Only God.” The
decree was immediately incorporated into the Criminal Code as article 156a.[14]

Religion under Suharto

A failed coup against President Sukarno in September 1965
claimed the lives of six army generals, but it was the army, led by then-Major
General Suharto, that emerged as the paramount power in the aftermath. Although
the events surrounding the coup attempt remain unclear and some participants
themselves described it as an internal military affair, the government
maintained that the Indonesian Communist Party was exclusively responsible for
the coup attempt. From 1965 to 1967, then GeneralSuharto
presided over a bloodbath of leftists and suspected sympathizers, generating
widespread fear in Java, Bali, Sumatra, Kalimantan, and other parts of the
country. Estimates of the number of people killed range from 78,000 to more
around 3 million.[15]

Political parties with
Islamist affiliations did not, as might have been expected, gain from the
destruction of the atheistic Indonesian Communist Party. Instead, Suharto
maintained close control over them, pressuring Muslim-based parties to merge into
a single group called the United Development Party (Partai Persatuan
Pembangunan, PPP) which he kept on a short leash. This changed in the latter
years of his rule, with Suharto alternately repressing and cultivating Islamic
organizations as a political force, the state increasingly identified with
observant Islam. The latter development was exemplified by the state-sponsored
formation of ICMI (Ikatan Cendekiawan Muslim Indonesia, Indonesian Association
of Muslim Intellectuals) in 1991 led by Indonesian technology minister B.J.
Habibie.

Despite government wariness and close scrutiny of Muslim
groups, acts of violence by militants against religious minorities occasionally
occurred. For example, in early 1967 Muslim militants attacked Christian
properties in Meulaboh in Aceh, Makassar in South Sulawesi, and Jakarta,
claiming to be fighting “Christianization.”[16]
The latter term generally refers both to alleged Christian efforts to convert
Muslims and to what some Muslims see as the growing influence of Christianity
in Muslim-majority Indonesia.

In November 1967, the Suharto regime organized an
inter-faith conference in Makassar to address tensions between Muslims and
Christians. At the conference, Muslim organizations asked Christian churches
not to proselytize or build new churches in Muslim-majority areas. Christian
leaders rejected the proposal and the conference ended without an agreement. In
September 1969, Minister of Religious Affairs Mohammad Dahlan and Minister of
Home Affairs Amir Machmud issued a decree that empowered local officials to
permit or prevent new houses of worship.[17]

Between 1971 and 1997, Suharto organized six tightly
controlled general elections and maintained broad-based repression on society,
while stressing his economic development and “modernization”
policies. Political activity, including by Islamic organizations, was sharply
limited.

The Suharto administration on several occasions used
unnecessary deadly force against Islamist activists. In September 1984, the
military gunned down protesters in Tanjung Priok seaport area in Jakarta. They
had been protesting the arrest of four Muslim activists over a dispute with a
soldier who had entered their mosque wearing shoes. In February 1989, after
young Darul Islam militants led an uprising and killed two military officers,
the military attacked a village in Talangsari, southern Sumatra, killing dozens
of Islamist activists and arresting and prosecuting at least 94 others.[18]

Post-Suharto
Developments

President Suharto’s fall from power in May 1998
unleashed political activity across the political spectrum. Islamist activists,
increasingly emboldened by democratic Indonesia’s new freedoms, organized
themselves into a small but growing, and at times potent, political force.
Several political parties, including the largest mainstream parties, lobbied
successive presidents to pass and implement laws, and adopt policies that
restrict the religious freedom of minorities.

Political tumult also followed Suharto’s departure
from office. In northern Sumatra, Acehnese separatists demanded a referendum
similar to that which occurred in East Timor in 1999.[19]
In Kalimantan, Dayak and Malay militias massacred thousands of Madurese
settlers in 1997-2003, while thousands more people were killed during sectarian
conflict on the Moluccan islands in 1999-2004.[20]
Sectarian violence between Christians and Muslims also erupted in Poso on
Sulawesi.

Since Suharto fell, conservative Islam has grown in
political influence, in part because Islamist political parties have been
allowed to play an open and legal role in Indonesian politics and in part
because hardline civil society groups operating outside the political system
have grown in size, number, and sophistication. In the June 1999 parliamentary
election, political parties that publicly identified themselves as advocates of
Islamic principles constituted 20 of the 48 parties that contested the
elections. The two leading nationalist, “secular” parties won 56
percent of the vote, while Muslim-identified parties altogether garnered around
37 percent, with the moderate Nation Awakening Party and the National Mandate
Party gaining 12 and 7 percent respectively. Two Islamist parties, which openly
campaign for the Islamic Sharia, the United Development Party and the Justice
Party (Partai Keadilan, PK), gained 11 and 1.5 percent respectively.[21]

In the post-Suharto era,
Islamists, like other groups, have also used the expanded democratic space to
publicize and promote their ideas. Populist and often militant Islamist groups
have significantly grown in strength. They include the FPI, created in August
1998, three months after Suharto stepped down, with support from government
security agencies as a means to challenge student groups that played a key role
in pressuring Suharto to resign.

Since Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono took office in December 2004,
there has been an increase in violence targeting Ahmadiyah, Christians, Shia,
and other religious minorities, as the data from the Setara Institute, cited
above, demonstrates. More than 430 churches have been attacked since 2004,
according to the Communion of Churches in Indonesia.[22]
Attacks against Ahmadiyah mosques increased markedly since Yudhoyono
capitulated to pressure from hardline Islamist groups and issued an
anti-Ahmadiyah decree in June 2008. At least 30 Ahmadiyah mosques have been
forced to close since then.

Although four post-Suharto presidents have made progress in
transforming Indonesia into a rights-respecting democracy, they have also faced
serious challenges from militant Islamists. Those challenges include bombings,
deadly assaults on the Ahmadiyah community, and the closing down of Christian
churches. While Islamist groups have carried out the attacks, the failure of
the authorities at the local and national levels to take serious action against
those responsible has created a climate in Indonesia in which members of minority
religious communities have much to fear. For that, the government from the
president on down remains responsible.

Religious Diversity in
Indonesia

Indonesia has a total population of 238 million people,
according to the 2010 census. The country is spread over a far-flung
archipelago of more than 17,000 islands that is home to more than 1000
linguistic groups, based largely on ethnicity. Approximately 88 percent
self-identify as Muslim, 9.3 percent as Christian, 1.8 percent as Hindu, 0.6 percent as Buddhist, and the rest
as followers of various smaller religions.[23] While
there is tremendous diversity among those who identify as Muslim, it is not
surprising that Islam is a key reference point in discussions of Indonesian
politics and society.

Ethnicity is also an important factor and remains closely
intertwined with religion. Different ethnic groups practice different religions.
The Javanese and the Sundanese, Indonesia’s two largest ethnic groups,
for example, are predominantly Sunni Muslim; the Malay and the Madurese, the
third and the fourth largest ethnic groups, are also predominantly Sunni
Muslim; the Batak, the fifth largest ethnic group, is majority-Christian.

The Javanese and Sundanese, who live mainly on the eastern
and western sides of Java, make up 57 percent of Indonesia’s population.
That population concentration makes Java the epicenter of Indonesian political
power and influence.

Sunni Muslims and Sunni
Groups

Indonesia has the largest
Muslim population of any country in the world. According to the Pew Research
Center, about 13 percent of the world’s Muslims live in Indonesia.[24] In recent decades, Muslims as a percentage of
Indonesia’s total population has remained relatively static. According to
Indonesia’s 1971 census, there were 103.6 million Muslims, constituting
about 87.5 percent of Indonesia’s total population of 118 million people.[25] In 2010, there were 209 million Muslims or about 88
percent of the total population of 238 million people.[26]

Nearly all of Indonesia’s Muslims are Sunni, the
largest branch of Islam globally. There is no official census on the number of
Sunni, Shia, or other sects in Indonesia. Sunni Muslims in Indonesia are represented
through various organizations that cut across the political spectrum. Some
organizations are locally grown while others have strong international ties.
The ultra-conservative strains of Sunni Islam in Indonesia have been influenced
by salafism and Wahabbism. Salafism is an ultra-puritan movement
that aims to practice Islam as the Prophet Mohammad, his companions, and the
first three generations of Muslims did. Wahabbis believe Islam provides
a fully adequate template for politics as well as faith, and they view many
political opponents as kafir, or infidels.[27]

Indonesia’s two largest indigenous Sunni Muslim
organizations are the Muhammadiyah and the Nahdlatul Ulama (NU).

The Muhammadiyah, established in 1912 in Yogyakarta, is a
reformist Muslim movement, which from the start set up schools and hospitals
and worked to purify the teaching of Islam from pre-Islamic, Hindu- or
Buddhist-influenced practices. It is the second largest Muslim organization in
Indonesia.[28]

The Nahdlatul Ulama is a Sunni organization established in
1926 in Jombang, East Java. The name in Arabic means “the leadership of
the ulamas,” the body of Muslim scholars. It operates thousands of
Islamic boarding schools or pesantren, mostly on Java, though it too is
national in scope. The NU also accommodates hundreds of Islamic tariqah (sufi)
organizations under its umbrella, helping protect such groups from being
branded as heretical.[29] The NU
claims to have 40-45 million members, making it the largest Muslim organization
in Indonesia.

The Muhammadiyah and the NU have had inconsistent approaches
toward religious minorities. On the one hand, prominent individuals in both
organizations have tried to oppose discriminatory measures against religious
minorities.[30] In
2008, a group of such individuals tried to stop the government from issuing the
anti-Ahmadiyah decree, signing a petition published in the Kompas
newspaper. In 2009 several petitioned the Constitutional Court to revoke the
blasphemy law.

On the other hand, neither the NU nor Muhammadiyah
organizations officially opposed the 2008 anti-Ahmadiyah decree. Even though
both officially oppose the use of violence against Ahmadiyah, their silence on
the decree is said to have been influential in its passage.[31]
In East Java, the NU has supported banning Shia Islam.[32]
And both the NU and Muhammadiyah are represented in the conservative Indonesian
Ulama Council (MUI), which advises the government regarding policies on
religion. Some of their leaders signed an MUI fatwa to ban the Ahmadiyah.

At the other end of the spectrum are various conservative
Muslim groups, including the FPI, which use Islamic edicts to try to justify
numerous vigilante actions against bars, clubs, pool halls, and Christian
churches and Ahmadiyah mosques.[33] FPI
chairman Rizieq Shihab, and its militia commander Munarman were sentenced to 18
months in prison for an attack by elements of the FPI against an interfaith
gathering in Jakarta in 2008.[34]

Historically the FPI has had
close connections to some police and army generals. According to leaked
documents, an Indonesian intelligence official in 2006 told US Embassy
officials that the Indonesian police found it useful to have FPI available as
their "attack dog," a handy tool to spare the security forces from
criticism for human rights violations, while funding the FPI was a
"tradition" of the police and the State Intelligence Agency (Badan
Intelijen Negara, BIN).[35] The police have denied having relations with the
FPI.[36]

Another militant group, the Islamic Reformist Movement (Gerakan
Islam Reformis, Garis) operates only in Cianjur regency, West Java, about a
three-hour drive from Jakarta. Garis chairman Chep Hernawan, a businessman, set
up the group in 1998. Since 2005, Garis has orchestrated public pressure to
close Ahmadiyah mosques. In 2007, Garis stopped a pilgrimage at a Catholic
monastery in Cianjur.[37]

Indonesia also has extremist Islamist groups that openly use
violence in promoting their cause. Under the influence of al Qaeda, Jemaah
Islamiah (JI) embraced the idea that its goals could only be secured through a
“holy war.” The JI was responsible for bombings in Indonesia and
elsewhere in the region, including blasts in two Bali nightclubs on October 12,
2002, that killed 202 people. It was also implicated in attacks against Christian
targets in Indonesia. A breakaway JI cell perpetrated a suicide bombing outside
the Australian embassy in Jakarta in September 2004, and a similar strike at
the JW Marriott hotel, also in Jakarta, in August 2003. Scores of Jemaah
Islamiah militants have been jailed or killed in government counterterrorism
operations since 2001.

In 2000, a Jemaah Islamiah
co-founder, Abu Bakar Bashir, helped create the Indonesian Mujahedeen Council
(Majelis Mujahidin Indonesia, MMI) in Yogyakarta. Bashir had a dispute with
other MMI leaders over its involvement in democratic processes in Indonesia.[38] Bashir then left the MMI and set up the Jemaah
Ansharut Tauhid (JAT) in 2008. Bashir and other JAT figures speak out against
democracy, advocate full application of the Islamic Sharia, and preach a
militant interpretation of jihad.[39] Suicide bombers belonging to a breakaway group of
the JAT attacked a Cirebon mosque on April 15, 2011, and a church in Solo on
September 25, 2011.[40] Bashir himself was convicted and sentenced to 15
years in prison in June 2011 for his role in funding a militant training camp
in Aceh.[41] The term was later reduced to nine years. He is on
the UN list of individuals associated with al Qaeda.[42]

Shia Muslims

Shia is the second largest
denomination of Islam in Indonesia. In Arabic, Shia is the short form of the
phrase Shiatu Ali or "followers of Ali"−a reference to Ali ibn AbiTalib, the son-in-law of
the Prophet Mohammed. Sunnis consider Ali the fourth and final of the four
caliphs (656–661). Shia regard Ali as the first imam (worship
leader) and consider him and his descendants the rightful successors to
Mohammed.

There is no census on the
number of Shia Muslims in Indonesia. The All Indonesian Assembly of Alhulbayt
Associations (Ikatan Jama'ah Ahlul Bayt Indonesia, IJABI), a national Shia
organization established in 2000, has said there are around 2.5 million Shia in
Indonesia.[43] Another Shia organization, the Ahlul Bayt Indonesia
(ABI), which emerged in 2010,[44] said that most Indonesian Shia reside in East Java
and West Java provinces.[45]

In 1984, the Indonesian Ulama Council issued a fatwa calling
on Indonesian Muslims to be “on alert” for Shia teachings.[46]

Christians

Christians are the second
largest religious group in Indonesia, consisting of 22 million people, or 9.3
percent of the population. In Indonesia, Christianity is legally divided into
two religions: Catholicism and Protestantism. Roughly two-thirds of the
Christians are Protestant, while one-third are Catholic. The Communion of
Churches in Indonesia (Persekutuan Gereja-gereja di Indonesia, PGI), an
umbrella of Protestant churches, has 40 members, 30 of which are “ethnic
churches,” meaning that their services are conducted mainly in local
languages.

Christian militias were
involved in violence against Muslim minorities in the Moluccas Islands and Poso
after President Suharto stepped down from power in 1998. Christian majority
also often hamper mosque constructions in their areas, mostly in eastern
Indonesia.

Catholics are organized
through the Bishops' Conference of Indonesia (Konferensi Waligereja Indonesia,
KWI). The government almost always consults both PGI and KWI when it is promulgating
a rule affecting religious freedom.

The Batak ethnic group, the
fifth largest ethnic group in Indonesia, is predominantly Christian, consisting
of several denominations. The Batak Protestant Christian Church (Huria Kristen
Batak Protestan, HKBP) is the largest Christian church in Southeast Asia, with
around 3.5 million churchgoers in more than 3,000 congregations across the
country.[49]

The number of Christians in
Indonesia has increased slightly since the 1970s as a percentage of the total
population, rising from 7.4 percent in 1971 to 8.9 percent in 2010.

A large number of Indonesia’s ethnic Chinese, an
economically dominant group in Southeast Asia, have converted from Confucianism
to Christianity. In 2000, about 1.5 percent of Indonesia’s population was
ethnic Chinese.[50]

Hindus

Hindus are the second largest religious minority in
Indonesia. They mostly live on Bali Island. Bali has around 3.4 million Hindus.
Balinese Hindu migrants, sponsored by the government since the 1980s, also have
a presence in Lampung, southern Sumatra, and in Central Sulawesi province.[51]

Several tribal beliefs such as Kaharingan (among the Dayak
in Borneo), Aluk To Dolo (among Torajans in southern Sulawesi), and Malim
(among the Batak in Sumatra) have sought affiliations with Hinduism in order to
survive, while preserving their distinctiveness from Indonesia’s
Balinese-dominated Hinduism.[52]

Buddhists

Buddhism has a long history in Indonesia with scores of
temples in Java and Sumatra, including the Muaro Jambi temple built in the 7th
century and the Borobudur temple near Yogyakarta built in the 8th
and the 9th centuries. Islamist militants bombed several Borobudur
stupas in January 1985.[53]

The majority of
Indonesia’s Buddhists are ethnic Chinese who have emigrated from China to
Indonesia over the past seven centuries.[54] Ethnic Chinese have a complex history in Indonesia,
establishing themselves as an economically dominant minority in the early 20th
century.[55] That economic dominance has at various times, in
recent Indonesian history, prompted often bitter racial prejudice and even
violence at the hands of elements of the majority population.[56]

Today, according to the 2010
census, about 1.5 million Indonesians are Buddhists, about 0.6 percent of the
population. Most Buddhists live in Jakarta, North Sumatra, West Kalimantan,
Banten, as well as in Bangka and Belitung islands.[57]

Ahmadiyah

The Ahmadiyah (sometimes referred to as Ahmadis, sometimes
spelled Ahmadiyya) profess to be Muslims, though most Muslims consider them to
be heretics for reasons including their acknowledgment of a
“messiah” after Mohammad, although some Ahmadiyah groups insist
that, like mainstream Muslims, they do not recognize any prophet after
Mohammad. The movement was founded by Mirza Ghulam Ahmad (1839–1908), who
was born in Punjab, India. In 1889, Ahmad declared that he had received divine
revelation, and two years later claimed to be the expected messiah of the
latter days.

An Ahmadiyah missionary arrived in Sumatra in 1925. In 1926,
the first Ahmadiyah mosque was established in Padang, Sumatra.[58]
A West Sumatra decree in 2011 sought to close it.[59]
The Jamaah Ahmadiyah Indonesia (JAI), the national organization of the
Ahmadiyah, was legally registered in Jakarta in 1953.

There are no statistics on
the number of Ahmadis in Indonesia. Indonesian Minister of Religious Affairs
Suryadharma Ali, who has said the Ahmadiyah should be banned, estimated that it
has 50,000 members, denying media reports that it has 400,000 members.[60] The Indonesian Ulama Council declared the Ahmadiyah
to be heretical in a 1980 fatwa and reissued the fatwa in 2005.[61]

II. Laws and
Institutions that Facilitate Discrimination and Abuse

The Indonesian government has through its constitution and
international treaties committed to respect the right to religious freedom.
Religious freedom has been part of the Indonesian constitution since
independence in 1945. In 2005 Indonesia ratified the International Covenant on
Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which provides under article 18(2) that
“[n]o one shall be subject to coercion which would impair his freedom to
have or to adopt a religion or belief of his choice,” and under article 27
that “persons belonging to ... minorities shall not be denied the right,
in community with the other members of their group, to enjoy their own culture,
to profess and practice their own religion.”

The UN Human Rights
Committee, the international expert body that monitors state compliance with
the ICCPR, stated in its General Comment 22 that it “views with concern
any tendency to discriminate against any religion or belief for any reason,
including the fact that they … represent religious minorities that may be
the subject of hostility on the part of a predominant religious
community.”[62] Moreover, the fact that a religion’s
followers comprise the majority of the population does not permit “any
discrimination against adherents to other religions or non-believers.”[63] In February 2013, the UN’s special rapporteur
on freedom of religion or belief, Heiner Bielefeld, warned that elements of a draft Indonesian law on
mass organizations“can violate
freedom of religion or belief.”[64] Bielefeld, along with
the special rapporteurs on freedom of association and expression, urged the
government to revise the bill “in line with international human rights
norms and standards.”[65]

In 2004, the Indonesian parliament passed the Autonomy Law
which decentralizes many aspects in the administration of the country. It
empowers new groups locally, Islamist and otherwise, as well as empowering
local officials to act with less regard for what's said in the capital by
officials or judges. But on paper, religion is not decentralized. It is one of
the six areas where local governments are not given the mandate to regulate:
foreign affairs, defense, security, justice, monetary plus fiscal, and
religion.[66]

Despite Indonesian legal guarantees of religious freedom,
several laws and policies have long undermined the right. Over the last 60
years various legal measures, including the establishment of the Ministry of
Religious Affairs in 1946, the 1965 blasphemy law, the 1969 and 2006 house of
worship decrees, and other statutes and regulations at national, provincial,
and regency levels have facilitated discrimination against minority faiths.
This section examines the most significant of those measures.

The 2000 Constitutional
Amendment

Article 29 of Indonesia’s Constitution, agreed in 1945,
states:

The state is based on belief in the One and Only God;

(2) The state guarantees each and every citizen the freedom
of religion and of worship in accordance with his religion and belief.[67]

On August 18, 2000, the
constitution was amended in ways that in some respects strengthened the
principle of religious freedom.[68] Article 28E (2) broadly guarantees the human rights
of Indonesian citizens, and specifically addresses religious freedom, stating
that “[e]ach person is free to worship and to practice the religion of
his choice.”

But article 28J (2), also
introduced in 2000, sets out legal duties that in practice are being used to
curb religious freedom, particularly of religious minorities: In exercising his
rights and liberties, each person has the duty to accept the limitations
determined by law for the sole purposes of guaranteeing the recognition and
respect of the rights and liberties of other people and of satisfying a
democratic society's just demands based on considerations of morality, religious
values, security, and public order.

The latter provision has been and continues to be invoked to
demand that religious minorities cater to the demands of the religious
majority. By 2010, Indonesia had at least 156 statutes, regulations, decrees,
and by-laws that restrict religious freedom, many of them justified by
reference to article 28J (2).[69]

Among the most significant legal obstacles to religious
freedom in Indonesia are:

The 1965 blasphemy law, enacted under
President Sukarno;

A joint ministerial decree regarding
proselytizing of religion signed by the ministers of religious affairs and home
affairs (No. 1/1979), titled “Regulating Missionary and Foreign Aid to
Religious Organizations”;

Child Protection Act No. 23/2002, enacted
under President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, which includes articles “to
protect” the faith of a child even when adopted;

A joint regulation issued by the ministers
of religious affairs and home affairs (No. 8 and No. 9/2006), titled
“Guidelines for Regional Heads and Deputies in Maintaining Religious
Harmony, Empowering the Religious Harmony Forum, and Constructing Houses of
Worship”;

A joint decree issued by the minister of
religious affairs, the attorney general, and minister of home affairs (No.
3/2008) ordering the Ahmadiyah to stop spreading their teachings.[70]

The 1965 Blasphemy Law

Pressure from Muslim
conservatives led to the passage of an overbroad and vague criminal law on
blasphemy during Sukarno’s rule. Article 156a of the Indonesian Criminal
Code states:

Any person who deliberately, in public, expresses feelings
or commits an act: which principally has the character of being of hostility,
hatred, or contempt against a religion adhered to in Indonesia; with the
purpose of preventing a person adhering to any religion based on the belief of
the Almighty God shall be punished up to a maximum imprisonment of five years.[71]

This criminal provision was based on a presidential decree
issued by President Sukarno on blasphemy, signed on January 27, 1965,
responding to requests from Muslim conservatives. The explanation of the decree
clarified that the religions “embraced by the people of Indonesia”
encompass “Islam, Christianity, Catholicism, Hinduism, Buddhism and
Confucianism.” In a later paragraph, it states that, “other religions,
for example, Judaism, Zoroastrianism, Shintoism and Taoism, shall be left alone
providing that provisions found in this ruling and other laws are not
violated.”

A common interpretation of the blasphemy law is that Indonesia
officially recognizes only six religions. The Constitutional Court has
since ruled that this interpretation is incorrect. It ruled that Indonesia
recognizes whatever religions its citizens believe in. But it only
protects six religions from blasphemy.[72]

Since 2005, more than a dozen people have been prosecuted
for blasphemy including:

Yusman Roy, a Muslim preacher,
sentenced in 2005 by the Malang district court, East Java, to two
years’ imprisonment for reciting a Muslim prayer in Indonesian
Malay, which, according to the Indonesian Ulama Council, tarnished the
purity of the Arabic-language prayer;[73]

Lia Eden, M. Abdul Rachman,
and Wahyu Andito Putro Wibisono, three leaders of a spiritual group called
the “Eden Community” in Jakarta, sentenced in 2006 by a
Jakarta court to prison terms of between two and three years. Lia Eden
claimed to have received revelations from the Angel Gabriel;[74]

Dedi Priadi and Gerry Lufthy
Yudistira, father and son, members of Al-Qiyadah Al-Islamiyah sufi sect,
sentenced to three years’ imprisonment in May 2008 by the Padang
court, West Sumatra, for blasphemy.[75]

Antonius Richmond Bawengan, a
preacher and a former Catholic, sentenced in 2011 by the Temanggung
district court, Central Java, to five years in prison for distributing a
booklet said to desecrate Islam entitled “Three Sponsors, Three
Agendas, Three Results” in Kranggan, a small village near
Temanggung, in October 2010;[76]

Alexander An, a Minangkabao
civil servant and an administrator of the “Minang Atheist”
Facebook group, sentenced in June 2012 by the Sijunjung court, West
Sumatra, to 30 months in prison and a fine of 100 million rupiah
(US$11,000) for inciting public unrest via his Facebook page. He was
initially charged under the blasphemy law as well as article 28 of the Information
and Electronic Transactions Law. The court, however, only used the
internet law for the verdict.[77]

Andreas Guntur, the leader of
the spiritual group Amanat Keagungan Ilahi, sentenced to four years’
imprisonment in March 2012 by the Klaten court, Central Java, for drawing
upon certain verses of the Quran but not abiding by other conventional
Islamic teachings. Guntur’s group was condemned by the Indonesian
Ulama Council, which issued a fatwa against it in 2009.[78]

Tajul Muluk, a Shia cleric in
Sampang, Madura Island, arrested in April 2012, and tried and sentenced to
two years in prison in July 2012 by the Sampang court for blasphemy.[79]
In September 2012, the East Java high court had his sentence changed to
four years. He appealed again and the Supreme Court kept the four years
punishment in January 2013.[80]

Sebastian Joe, a Muslim in
Ciamis, sentenced to four years imprisonment for blasphemy in November
2012 by the Ciamis court, West Java, for his comments about Islam on his
Facebook page. In January 2013, the West Java court changed the sentence
to five years, using the Information and Electronic Transactions Law.[81]

In October 2009 activists challenged the blasphemy law at
the Constitutional Court. Led by former President Abdurrahman Wahid, the
petitioners argued that the law violates the constitutional right to freedom of
expression and Indonesia's obligations under international human rights
treaties.[82]

Two government ministers called as witnesses, Minister of
Religious Affairs Suryadharma Ali and Minister for Law and Human Rights
Patrialis Akbar, argued in favor of the law’s constitutionality. They
said Muslim mobs would probably attack religious minorities if the blasphemy
law were overturned, believing it their duty to defend their religion if Islam
is being tarnished.[83] Members
of Islamist groups attended the Constitutional Court's weekly hearings, and
some Islamist members harassed lawyers and witnesses for the petitioners at the
court building.[84]

On April 19, 2010, the court ruled 8 to 1 that the blasphemy
law lawfully restricted minority religious beliefs because it allows for the
maintenance of “public order.” While the court majority said that
religion is a private matter with which the state should not interfere, it
upheld the blasphemy law's restrictions, finding that religious minorities
could become targets of violence by intolerant members of the public who were
not sufficiently educated to support religious pluralism. The court also
concluded that the blasphemy law was not about recognizing “official
religions” in Indonesia.[85]

In the court’s only
dissenting opinion, Judge Maria Farida Indrati argued the blasphemy law should
be found unconstitutional because it explicitly discriminates against religious
minorities and would force individuals to abandon traditional and minority
beliefs against their will.[86]

Decrees on Houses of Worship

Decrees pronounced in 1969
and 2006 infringe upon the right to freedom of religion by unnecessarily
restricting the construction of houses of worship. These regulations have
especially been used to discriminate against Christians who seek to build
churches. In rare cases, they have also been used in Christian-majority eastern
Indonesia against Muslims who seek to build mosques.

Some Muslims in Indonesia
have expressed concern with the purported “Christianization” of
Indonesia.[87] While the statistics show an increase in Christians
as a proportion of the Indonesia population as a whole, as noted above, the
increase is small (from 7.4 percent in 1971 to 8.9 percent in 2010). However,
an increase in proselytization by some Christian sects, in some instances what
has been perceived as aggressive proselytization in traditionally Muslim areas
(sometimes with funding from overseas Christian groups), has fueled the debate.

1969 Decree on Houses of
Worship

The 1969 decree on building houses of worship was jointly
issued by the minister of religious affairs, Mohammad Dahlan, and the minister
of home affairs, Amir Machmud.[88] The
decree authorizes local governments to require that “a house of worship
may only be built with the approval of a regional administrator,” such as
the provincial governor. It also states that, “if necessary, the head of
the government could ask the opinion of religious organizations and
clerics” before a house of worship is built.[89]

Immediately after the decree was enacted, some governors
responded by issuing new local regulations that in practice restricted minority
religions. For example, the West Java governor required that a new house of
worship should have the approval of at least 40 citizens living in the
neighborhood, while other governments, mayors, and regents asked the church to
get “prior approval” from “religious leaders” in their
respective areas.[90] In
1979, in Singkil, southern Aceh, on Sumatra, the local government demanded that
Christians sign an agreement to have only one church and four chapels despite
there already being 14 churches in the area.[91]

While such regulations
ostensibly apply to all religions, in practice they have been used to
discriminate against religious minorities. Christians in a number of different
regions have faced extensive difficulties in securing church construction permits,
including but not exclusively in areas where there has been recent demographic
change, such as increased settlement by Christian families in traditionally
Muslim areas. In some cases, it has taken between 10 and 20 years to construct
a church building. Muslim militants have also used the decree to justify
vandalizing and sometimes even burning what they call “illegal
churches.”

The Communion of Churches in
Indonesia, the umbrella organization of Protestant churches, repeatedly asked
the government to repeal the 1969 decree. In an effort to overcome the impact
of the various regulations based on the 1969 decree, hundreds of Christian
congregations in Muslim-dominated islands began to organize their services in
private houses.[92] However, in 1975, Minister of Home Affairs Amir
Machmud instructed provincial governments by telegram to prohibit the use of
“private homes” for religious services, further restricting
religious freedom. While the cable lacked legal status, it continues to be
enforced today in some areas.[93]

2006 Decree on Houses of
Worship

Indonesian presidents since
Suharto have tried to address the problems caused by the houses of worship
decree, but without success. After taking office in 2004, President Susilo
Bambang Yudhoyono met a delegation of Christian leaders and agreed that the
construction of houses of worship should not depend on the majority’s
wishes. He asked the minister of religious affairs, Maftuh Basyuni, to review
the 1969 decree.[94] Maftuh Basyuni appointed Ma'ruf Amin, the head of the
fatwa committee of the Indonesian Ulama Council, himself a presidential
advisor, to lead a committee to draft the new decree.[95]

In March 2006, Minister Basyuni
and Home Minister Mohammad Ma’ruf amended the 1969 decree by issuing
Joint Regulation of the Minister of Religious Affairs and Minister of Home
Affairs No. 8 and No. 9/2006, “Guidelines for Regional Heads and Deputies
in Maintaining Religious Harmony, Empowering Religious Harmony Forums, and
Constructing Houses of Worship.” The decree essentially permits regional
governments to continue to license the construction of houses of worship.[96]

The decree provides that the construction of houses of
worship should be based on “real needs” and “composition of
the population” in the area.[97] A
permit for constructing a house of worship requires:

List of names and ID cards of
at least 90 people who will use the house of worship. This list should be
endorsed by the village head;

Support letter from at least
60 people living in the area. This support letter should be endorsed by
the village head;

Written recommendation from
the local Ministry of Religious Affairs;

Written recommendation from the local Religious Harmony
Forum (Forum Kerukunan Umat Beragama, FKUB).[98]

Local governments are to arrange a “temporary venue”
for religious worship if the congregation has met the signature requirements
but has not yet received the recommendations.[99] A mayor
or a regent should issue a decision within 90 days of the application for a
construction permit.[100] A
congregation can use an ordinary building as a temporary place of worship with
the mayor or regent’s approval.[101]

The decree requires the local government to set up a Religious
Harmony Forum in each area.[102] It
states that the composition of the local Religious Harmony Forum should mirror
the composition of believers in the area, meaning that a Muslim-majority area
may have significantly more Muslim members than Christian ones, and vice versa,
placing the minority religion at a distinct disadvantage in obtaining a permit.

The Communion of Churches in Indonesia considered the decree
more repressive than the 1969 regulation. They dispute the substance of the
decree which authorizes local governments to approve or reject house of worship
building permits. It also contradicts with the 2004 Autonomy Law. Even so,
these Christian leaders felt that, politically, they had no option but to
acquiesce and focused their efforts on getting friendlier articles
inserted into the decree, including a provision, ultimately included in the
decree, calling on the government to provide a temporary place of worship when
a congregation is having trouble obtaining a building permit.[103]

Many public officials disregard this 2004 provision on
decentralization, creating various decrees and regulations on Islamic groups.
In Blitar, East Java, Major Samahudi Anwar demanded six Catholic schools to
teach Quranic recital for their Muslim students. When the schools rejected he
threatened to close them down. It prompted the Constitutional Court to remind
the major that religion is the domain of the central government.[104]

2008 Anti-Ahmadiyah Decree

In July 2005, the Indonesian Ulama Council reissued an edict
originally issued in 1980 that states that the Ahmadiyah community deviates
from Quranic teaching by claiming that Mirza Ghulam Ahmad was a
“prophet.”[105]
Following the 2005 edict, Islamist groups mobilized and assaulted the Ahmadiyah
theology college in Parung, Bogor regency, West Java, as well as Ahmadiyah
communities in East Lombok (Lombok island, West Nusa Tenggara province) and in
West Java province (including in Manis Lor, Tasikmalaya, Garut, Ciaruteun, and
Sadasari).

On April 16, 2008, Indonesia’s Coordinating Board for
Monitoring Mystical Beliefs in Society (Badan Koordinasi Pengawas Aliran
Kepercayaan Masyarakat, Bakor Pakem), a subdivision of the Attorney
General’s Office, recommended banning the Ahmadiyah faith. Moderate
Muslim leaders responded by rallying support for the Ahmadiyah, and the
principle of freedom of religion.[106]

Adnan Buyung Nasution, a member of the presidential advisory
council, tried to block the decree, asking President Yudhoyono not to pass it.
“It will set a precedent against other religions if the Ahmadiyah is
discriminated against,” said Nasution.[107]
According to Nasution, Yudhoyono asked him to meet with then Religious Affairs
Minister Maftuh Basyuni, Home Minister Mardiyanto, and Attorney General
Hendarman Supanji.[108]

The moderates organized a rally in Jakarta on June 1, 2008,
hoping to pressure the government not to ban the Ahmadiyah. But Muslim
militants attacked the rally, chasing, punching, kicking, and hitting
participants with bamboo and rattan sticks. More than 60 people were injured,
some seriously.[109] Police
arrested Munarman and Habib Rizieq Shihab of the FPI. In October 2008, the
Central Jakarta court found them guilty of “mass beatings” and
sentenced them both to 18 months in prison.[110]

On June 9, 2008, Religious
Affairs Minister Basyuni, Home Minister Mardiyanto, and Attorney General
Supanji signed the decree, ordering the Ahmadiyah community to “stop
spreading interpretations and activities which deviate from the principal
teachings of Islam,” including “the spreading of the belief that
there is another prophet with his own teachings after Prophet Mohammed.”
Violations of the decree are subject to up to five years in prison.[111]

The 2008 decree opened the door to provincial governors as
well as regents and mayors to write their own anti-Ahmadiyah decrees. Jemaah
Ahmadiyah Indonesia, the national Ahmadiyah organization, reported in 2011 that
five provinces—Banten, East Java, West Java, West Sumatra, and South
Sulawesi—as well as 22 mayoralties and regencies in Indonesia had issued
anti-Ahmadiyah regulations.[112]

On February 28, 2011, the provincial government in East
Java, which has a population of 35 million, banned Ahmadiyah activities,
outlawing the display of their mosque and school signs, and their use of
“electronic media” to extend their teachings. On March 3, Ahmad
Heryawan, the governor of West Java, Indonesia's most populous province, with
36 million people, also banned Ahmadiyah activities.[113]
On March 24, West Sumatra Governor Irwan Prayitno prohibited some Ahmadiyah
activities including spreading their faith via billboards, oral statements,
written materials, and electronic media.[114]

In March, Nasution wrote to Home Affairs Minister Gamawan
Fauzi, calling on local leaders to revoke their decrees: “Religious
affairs is the domain of the central government. It’s not the domain of
the local governments.”[115] Fauzi
rejected the plea, saying that the local decrees did not contradict the
national regulation.[116]

Indonesian officials justify
the decree by saying it helps prevent further anti-Ahmadiyah violence. A
Ministry of Religious Affairs study argues that the destruction of Ahmadiyah
mosques has taken place in “many parts of the country” such as
Medan (1964), Cianjur (1968), Kuningan (1969), West Nusa Tenggara (1976),
Central Kalimantan, South Sulawesi, West Kalimantan, Surabaya, and Parung in
Bogor (1981). As the study concluded: “These incidents of conflict show
that the problem of law and order has been there for quite some time.”[117]

But violence against the Ahmadiyah has in fact sharply
increased since the issuance of the decree. According to the Jakarta-based
Setara Institute, violence rose from three reported incidents in 2006 to 50 in
2010 and 114 in 2011.[118]

Religious Harmony Bill

In October 2011, Coordinating
Minister for People’s Welfare Agung Laksono, Minister of Religious
Affairs Suryadharma Ali, and Minister of Home Affairs Gamawan Fauzi submitted a
bill on religious harmony to Indonesia’s lower house of Parliament, the
House of Representatives.[119] The proposed law would regulate religious issues
such as proselytization, celebration of religious holidays, construction of
houses of worship, funerals and religious education. It emphasizes the
responsibilities of religious minorities to protect “religious
harmony.”

Religious freedom advocates have opposed the bill on the
ground that it would legitimize existing discriminatory regulations including
the 1965 blasphemy law, the 2006 ministerial decree on building houses of
worship, the 2008 anti-Ahmadiyah decree, and articles in the Child Protection
Act.[120]

Religious Institutions in
Indonesia

In addition to the various laws and policies that restrict
religious freedom, various governmental and quasi-governmental institutions
have played a key role in promoting a Sunni Islamic identity in Indonesia at
the expense of minority religions.

Ministry of Religious Affairs

In the early 20th
century, during Dutch rule, Muslims in Indonesia lobbied to establish an office
of Islamic affairs to provide religious education through state-owned madrasahs,
to provide religious guidance and information, to organize the hajj pilgrimage
management to Mecca, and to organize an Islamic court on such matters as
marriage, divorce, and inheritance.[121]

The Ministry of Religious Affairs was set up in 1946, and
while many of its programs are tailored towards Islam, it is a multi-religious
office. The ministry is currently divided into seven directorates.[122]
Three directorates exclusively deal with Muslims: Islamic affairs, hajj
management, and Islamic education. The others address Protestant affairs,
Catholic affairs, Hindu affairs, and Buddhist affairs, respectively.[123]

The Ministry of Religious Affairs now has branches in every
province and regency and a budget of IDR37.3 trillion (US$4.1 billion) for
2011-2012.[124] This
is the fourth largest among government agencies after the Ministry of Defense
(IDR64.4 trillion), the Ministry of Public Works (IDR61.2 trillion), and the
Ministry of Education (IDR57.8 trillion). The Ministry of Religious Affairs’
budget is larger than that of the National Police or the Ministry of Health.
The ministry also controls the allocation of funds from the annual hajj
pilgrimage (IDR32 trillion in 2010). If both sources of funds are combined, the
Ministry of Religious Affairs controls more funds than any other government
agency in Indonesia.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono appointed Suryadharma
Ali, the chairman of the Muslim-based United Development Party, part of the
ruling coalition, to be the minister of religious affairs in October 2009.[126]

In June 2012, the Corruption
Eradication Commission announced an investigation into the Islamic Education
Directorate General within the Ministry of Religious Affairs. Officials at the
directorate and a parliament member allegedly misappropriated funds set aside
for purchasing Qurans in 2010 and 2011.[127]

The Ministry of Religious Affairs plays a key role in
government policies on religion, and has taken a strong stance against
religious organizations it deems to be heretical. In 1952, the ministry set up
a body, the precursor of Bakor Pakem, to monitor and to ban several spiritual
movements and native faiths. The ministry also wrote the 1969 and 2006 decrees
on building houses of worship. In 2011, Suryadharma Ali helped mobilize
anti-Ahmadiyah campaigns in Indonesia by repeatedly calling Ahmadiyah practices
blasphemy against Islam and asking the Yudhoyono government to ban the
Ahmadiyah. In 2011, the ministry’s East Java office was involved in
supporting an MUI anti-Shia edict.[128]

Suryadharma Ali has been
outspoken against religious minorities, saying that the government should ban
Ahmadiyah and Shia. In March 2011, he said of the Ahmadiyah: “We have two
options: to let them live or to totally ban them.… We have to ban the
Ahmadiyah. It is obvious that Ahmadiyah is against Islam.”[129] In January 2012, after a meeting with
parliamentarians, Suryadharma Ali publicly stated that the Shia faith is
“against Islam.”[130]

The ministry is also influential in advising police and
prosecutors to take legal action against individuals it deems to have insulted
Islam. It was involved in practically all prosecutions against religious
minorities in Indonesia in the last decade. In Sampang, on Madura island, in
October 2009, the ministry was involved in pressuring a Shia cleric to stop
Shia activities in his village.[131] Halim
Toha, the head of the Ministry of Religious Affairs in Sampang, led the
eviction of displaced Shia members from a stadium where they had settled
temporarily after running away from their burned hamlet.[132]
In Dharmasraya town, West Sumatra, in early 2012, the ministry was involved in
the trial of an atheist.[133]

Bakor Pakem

The Coordinating Board for Monitoring Mystical Beliefs in
Society (Badan Koordinasi Pengawas Aliran Kepercayaan Masyarakat, Bakor Pakem)
is a coordinating body under Indonesia’s Attorney General’s Office
with branches in every province and regency under local prosecutors’
offices. According to the 2004 Public Prosecution Service Law, the Attorney
General has the responsibility to provide “oversight in respect of
religious beliefs that could endanger society and the state.”[134]
Bakor Pakem traditionally sits under the intelligence division of the public
prosecution office.

The Ministry of Religious Affairs first established a body
to monitor mystical beliefs in 1952. The 1961 Public Prosecution Law authorizes
the Attorney General’s Office to host this monitoring body, thus creating
Bakor Pakem. It works closely with the Ministry of Religious Affairs, the
police, the military, and local governments.[135]

Bakor Pakem is extremely influential when it comes to
pressing the government to ban religious communities. Bakor Pakem recommended
the banning of Al Qiyadah Al Islamiyah sect on
November 7, 2007, and in two days, the Attorney General’s Office banned
the sect. Bakor Pakem recommended the banning of the Ahmadiyah in April
2008. Two months later, Ahmadiyah religious propagation activities were banned.[136]

In the last three decades, various Bakor Pakem offices have
called for the banning of more than 30 religions, ranging from native faiths
like the Agama Djawa Sunda (1964) to international religions like the
Jehovah’s Witness (1976).

Under the Yudhoyono administration, Bakor Pakem has played
an active role in the prosecution of religious figures it considers to be
committing blasphemy. Bakor Pakem in Sampang regency, on Madura, recommended to
the Attorney General’s Office that the Shia faith should be banned in
Indonesia. It also organized the prosecution of Shia cleric Tajul Muluk.[137]
In Cianjur, Bakor Pakem was involved in the prosecution of Hasan Suwandi, an
Ahmadiyah mosque guard, on charges of criminal defamation against a police
officer in his neighborhood.[138] In
Dharmasraya, West Sumatra, Bakor Pakem led the prosecution of alleged atheist
Alexander An.[139]

Asfinawati Ajub, a human rights lawyer in Malang, East Java,
who represents Tajul Muluk, has questioned the authority of Bakor Pakem, noting
that the 2004 Public Prosecution Law does not specifically authorize the creation
of such a body. The law only stipulates that public prosecutors have
“preventive and educational” authority when dealing with certain
mystical beliefs which might “endanger the people and the state.”[140]

Indonesian Ulama Council
(Majelis Ulama Indonesia, MUI)

The Indonesian Ulama Council (Majelis Ulama Indonesia, MUI)
is Indonesia’s top Muslim clerical body. It has an advisory council and
an executive body with 12 commissions. MUI is a quasi-government agency that
issues fatwas and helps shape government policy in Islamic matters. The MUI is
partly funded via the Ministry of Religious Affairs or through provincial and
local government budgets, but it is not audited by state auditing bodies. It
has hundreds of offices throughout Indonesia.[141]

Its central board in Jakarta consists of 273 individuals,
including various representatives of Muslim organizations, four cabinet
members, politicians, retired generals, academics, businessmen, a novelist, a
movie star, a model, and members of Islamist groups. The board includes
representatives of every Islamic organization in Indonesia, thus providing a
forum for the growing numbers of hardline Islamist groups.[142]
Its chairman usually comes either from Muhammadiyah or the Nahdlatul Ulama
(NU).

The council is composed of various Muslim groups, ranging
from older organizations such as the Muhammadiyah, the NU, and Persatuan Islam,
to newer ones, such as the Majelis Mujahidin Indonesia, Hizbut Tahrir
Indonesia, and the FPI. Historically, the MUI has refused to have Shia and
Ahmadiyah members, and has subsequently declared both groups heretical. There
is no fixed procedure on how an individual can join the MUI. It has no
institutional oversight although some Muslim organizations have at times
criticized the MUI if they believed the council was not meeting their
expectations.

The Indonesian military set up the first ulama council in
West Java in July 1958, with similar councils established in regencies and
districts throughout the province. The purpose of those councils, according to
Col. R.A. Kosasih of the Siliwangi military command, was “to
stabilize” West Java against the Darul Islam activities.[143]
It was soon copied in other islands with similar movements, including West
Sumatra, South Sulawesi and Aceh, where Muslim fighters also tried to set up
Islamic states.

The MUI as a national
institution was established in 1975 under President Suharto to be a bridge
between Muslim leaders and the state. Its main activities were to issue fatwas,
strengthen Muslim brotherhood, represent Muslims in meetings with other
religious organizations, and act a liaison between ulamas (clerics) and
government officials.[144]

The MUI’s remit began
expanding in the closing years of the Suharto regime, the MUI issuing fatwas on
a variety of issues including halal certification, Islamic Sharia-based bank
monitoring and supervision, Sharia finance mediation, and environmental issues.[145] In July 2005 it issued a number of fatwas against
pluralism, secularism, liberalism, interfaith prayer, interfaith marriage, and
all alternative interpretations of religious texts.[146] President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono gave the MUI
implicit endorsement by opening the 2005 MUI congress, suggesting that his
administration would work closely with it.[147]

Its fatwas are sometimes
used as a basis for changes of law or policy in Indonesia. The Ministry of
Religious Affairs works very closely with the MUI. When suggesting the ban of
Ahmadiyah, Minister of Religious Affairs Suryadharma Ali, himself an MUI
advisory board member, referred to an MUI fatwa in declaring Ahmadiyah
heretical.[148] At the same time, the MUI has also pressured the
government to ban the Ahmadiyah outright, saying that a fatwa is not
sufficient.[149]

In July 2005, the MUI
reissued a 1980 fatwa against the Ahmadiyah, declaring it to be a deviant sect,
heretical, and dangerous. The July 2005 fatwa said that the government was
obliged to prohibit the spread of Ahmadiyah teaching, ban the organization, and
close all of its buildings.[150]

Amidhan, a MUI deputy chairman and a retired Ministry of
Religious Affairs official, insisted that the MUI “rejects the use of
violence” and “supports pluralism”:

If pluralism looks like all religions are the same then it
is not good. MUI respects religious freedom. The meaning of pluralism in MUI is
that all religions are not as good as others…. We don't compromise our
religion. If someone insults our religion then violence emerges.[151]

Local MUIs have pushed for
national fatwas by issuing their own at the provincial or regency level. For
instance, in September 2007, the MUI in West Sumatra issued a fatwa against the
Al Qiyadah Al Islamiyah sect. Their local fatwa eventually reach the national
MUI, which ended with the ban on Al Qiyadah in 2007.[152] On January 2, 2012, the local MUI office in Sampang
regency issued an anti-Shia fatwa.[153] The provincial East Java MUI followed it on January
21, 2012, asking the national MUI to declare the Shia religion heretical and
recommending that the Indonesian government act against the spread of Shia
teachings.[154]

The MUI has also issued fatwas against most of those who end
up being prosecuted under the blasphemy law.[155] MUI
clerics issue fatwas first and later contact the police via the Bakor Pakem
channel. These various fatwas precede the blasphemy prosecutions and are quoted
as evidence in blasphemy trials.

Some MUI offices, especially
in Muslim-majority areas, also have opposed Christians opening new churches. In
Bekasi regency, MUI chairman Sulaiman Zachawerus reportedly warned his Muslim
audience about Bekasi being “the target of Christianization.”[156] Zachawerus was involved in preventing HKBP
Filadelfia (Batak Protestant Christian Church or Huria Kristen Batak
Protestan), a Batak Christian congregation in Bekasi, from building their
church despite a Supreme Court ruling ordering the Bekasi regent to issue a
building permit.[157]

The national MUI also opposed
the construction of GKI Yasmin (an Indonesian Christian Church in the Jasmine
Garden housing complex, or Gereja Kristen Indonesia Taman Yasmin) in Bogor, a
Jakarta suburb, even though the Supreme Court had ordered the Bogor government
to reopen the church. The national MUI has supported the Bogor mayor in defying
the Supreme Court decision.[158]

Religious Harmony Forum

The 2006 decree on houses of
worship states that government leaders in all provinces, cities, and
regencies should establish Religious Harmony Forums (Forum Kerukunan Umat
Beragama, FKUB). Comprised of local religious leaders, these
“consultative forums” advise the governor, the mayor, or the regent
on the construction of houses of worship.

Governors, regents, and
mayors decide who will be FKUB members and up to 21 members may sit in the
forum.[159] Members of minority religions such as Christian,
Hindus, and Buddhists are guaranteed at least one representative on these
forums pursuant to a 2006 decree.[160] However, the FKUB have compounded the social and
political marginalization of Shia and Ahmadiyah groups by regularly failing to
include any of their representatives.[161] The Ministry of Religious Affairs coordinates the
FKUB offices via its Center of Religious Harmony.[162]

In West Java, both the FKUB and Ministry of Religious
Affairs have made it difficult for minorities to build their houses of worship.
In Bekasi regency, for instance, the 17-member FKUB has 12 Muslims, 2
Christians, 1 Hindu, 1 Buddhist, and 1 Confucian.[163]
The presence of more conservative Muslim members has played a role in
preventing HKBP Filadelfia, a Batak church, from obtaining an FKUB
recommendation to build their church.[164]

On February 12, 2012, the FKUB in Bekasi city played an
active part in the closure of three churches in a single day: the Indonesian
Church of Christ Loving (Gereja Kristus Rahmani Indonesia, GKRI), HKBP
Kaliabang, and the Pentecost Church.[165] In
Parung, Bogor regency, the FKUB has refused to issue a recommendation to
authorize a Catholic church to be built despite it meeting the criteria of the
2006 decree.[166]

In Manado, North Sulawesi, a Christian-dominated area, Ulyas
Taha, the deputy secretary of FKUB and himself a Muslim, said it was working
without any serious problems. It was established in 2009 and has since received
10 applications to build six new churches and four new mosques. “We
passed them all. … [I]n some cases, we asked them to complete the
application requests. But all those 10 are recommended.”[167]

In Central Java, Aloys Budi Purnomo, a Catholic priest who
heads the Commission for Inter-Religious Affairs of the Diocese of Semarang and
advises Catholics in FKUB offices, said that on average two Catholics sit in
each FKUB office in most of Central Java’s urban centers such as
Semarang, Kendal, Pati, Kudus, Solo, Boyolali, Wonogiri, and Salatiga.
“It’s good that Catholics now have representatives involved in
deciding on the construction of houses of worship,” he said, noting that
problems only arise when FKUB members have to vote on an issue: “The
minorities obviously lose the voting.”[168]

Andreas Yewangoe, the chairman of the Communion of Churches
in Indonesia, praised FKUBs in Central Java, “They’re really trying
to promote religious tolerance.”[169]

In Christian-dominated Kupang, Timor, the FKUB has defended
a plan to build a mosque in the Batuplat neighborhood, arguing that it has met
all the criteria despite opposition from Christian groups. “The mosque
construction should go ahead. There’s no reason to stop it,” said
Kupang FKUB chairman Hendrik Malelak.[170]

Most FKUBs do not have paid staff. Their staff are provided
either by the local government or by the local Ministry of Religious Affairs.
FKUB members receive an honorarium from the government. The payment sometimes
attracts clerics to compete for FKUB membership.

III. House of Worship
Difficulties, Discrimination, and Violence

Human Rights Watch documented cases where members of
religious minorities faced discrimination as a result of their faith in various
administrative contexts, especially their ability to register marriages.

Attacks on Houses of
Worship

The 2006 regulation on
houses of worship has not improved the situation on the ground for religious
minorities, who have difficulties obtaining permits to build places of worship
and, in the worst cases, become targets of violence. According to the
Indonesian Communion of Churches, 430 churches were forced to close between
January 2005 and December 2010.[171]

Human Rights Watch
documented at least 12 cases in which militant groups have used the 2006 decree
to block the establishment of new houses of worship and to close 31 existing
houses of worship.[172] Those groups have argued their efforts were
justified because the minority congregations lacked building permits or allegedly
used forged signatures from neighbors in obtaining permits, or because
establishment of a house of worship would disturb harmonious relations among
neighbors by offending religious sensibilities of the majority.

The 2006 decree can also be used against Muslims. Human
Rights Watch documented one case in which Muslims faced problems constructing a
mosque in predominantly Christian West Timor, and there are likely other such
cases.

Even in cases where a permit
is issued for a house of worship, vociferous responses from militant groups
have caused local officials to rescind them or the groups prevent the
applicants from constructing or using the building. The Indonesian government and
local authorities routinely fail to take measures against the Islamist groups.
At times local government officials have worked in collaboration with militant
groups by cancelling building permits and taking up their call to encourage
minority congregations to move to different areas.

Human Rights Watch documented sustained campaigns against
two high-profile Christian churches, that of the GKI Yasmin church in Bogor,
and the HKBP Filadelfia church in Bekasi, West Java. Both of these churches had
not only secured all administrative documents and political approvals, but won
Supreme Court challenges to secure their building permits. Despite these
favorable court decisions, local government authorities denied building permits
to the two churches.

GKI Yasmin, Bogor

The GKI Yasmin church in Bogor obtained necessary approvals
and began constructing a church on land they owned in 2006. But a year and a
half later, in February 2008, the Bogor City Planning Office suddenly froze GKI
Yasmin’s building permit without providing a clear reason. According to
Thomas Wadu Dara, the GKI Yasmin construction coordinator, Bogor Mayor Diani
Budiarto promised that it was only a temporary freeze in response to protests
from Muslim activists.[173]

That same month, GKI Yasmin filed a lawsuit against the
Bogor City Planning Office at the Bogor administrative court. Activists from
Forkami, an Islamist organization based in Bogor, organized rallies against the
church, saying that GKI Yasmin could not build the church on this location because
it was on a street named after Muslim preacher Abdullah bin Nuh. Bogor Mayor
Diani Budiarto made the same argument.[174]

In September 2008, the Bogor administrative court held that
the Bogor government had illegally frozen the building permit. The legal battle
continued on to the West Java high court, the Supreme Court, and a review of
the Supreme Court verdict in December 2010. All of the judgments were favorable
to the church.[175]

The Bogor City Planning Office unfroze the building permit
after the Supreme Court verdict. But a week later Mayor Budiarto revoked his
recommendation for the building permit, producing another legal obstacle for
GKI Yasmin’s building its church. GKI Yasmin reported the revocation to
the Indonesian Ombudsman’s Office. In July 2011, the Ombudsman’s
Office declared the mayor’s action to be “malpractice”
because he demonstrated no “commitment to implement the Supreme Court
verdict.”[176]

The Indonesian ombudsman asked Mayor Budiarto and West Java
Governor Ahmad Heryawan to implement the Supreme Court decision. Home Affairs
Minister Gamawan Fauzi was also asked to supervise the implementation of the
verdict.

Budiarto told the Indonesian Ulama Council that the GKI
Yasmin matter was not an issue of religious freedom but purely about the building
permit. He said he had offered GKI Yasmin “relocation” but they
declined. “There is a small group of people who want to tarnish our image
internationally,” he told the media. “The problem is actually
small.”[177]

President Yudhoyono has said that the GKI Yasmin
congregation has the right to worship, stating in a televised comment,
“I've been pushing the mayor, the governor, local communities, to resolve
the problem. I personally, and also the government, want the GKI Yasmin to be
able to worship quietly and peacefully in Bogor.”[178]
But he stopped short of saying that the Bogor mayor has to respect the Supreme
Court verdict and that GKI Yasmin has the right to build their church. His
spokesman said the president cannot interfere in local issues within the mayor’s
authority.[179]

The church has continued to fight the Bogor mayor’s
failure to implement the Supreme Court’s decision. Only one political
party, the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle, has been outspoken in
criticizing the mayor’s actions.

HKBP Filadelfia, Bekasi

HKBP Filadelfia in Bekasi bought a plot of land in Jejalen
Jaya village in June 2007. The church obtained 259 neighborhood approvals, more
than the 60 signatures needed from the local community as required under the
2006 decree. In April 2008, the congregation wrote to the Ministry of Religious
Affairs and the Religious Harmony Forum requesting approvals to build the
church. Neither agency responded.[180]

The 2006 decree requires the
local government to provide an alternative site if a congregation’s
request is denied.[181] In Jejalen Jaya, where HKBP Filadelfia is located,
the Bekasi government has provided no alternative, thus giving the congregation
no place to worship.

As in the GKI Yasmin case, the church won successive legal
actions against the Bekasi regent, from the Bandung administrative court up to
the Supreme Court, which ruled in its favor in June 2011. But Bekasi Regent
Sa’duddin refused to issue the building permit.

On March 20, 2012, the Bekasi government invited both HKBP Filadelfia
and Haji Naimun’s group, which organized the protest against HKBP
Filadelfia, to meet at the North Tambun district office. Deddy Rohendi, the
head of the Bekasi regency legal division, admitted in a video recording that
the Supreme Court decision was “final and legally binding.” But he
said, “[T]he verdict is very difficult to implement. We’re afraid
we will have a clash if we insist on doing it. The legal channel is not
final.” Naimun and local officials, including North Tambun district head
Suharto, pressured HKBP Filadelfia officials, saying that they could not
guarantee the Christians’ safety if they keep trying to build the church.
Suharto offered a “solution,” saying that HKBP Filadelfia could use
the compound for two more weeks but then had to find another location.[182]

From Java to Timor,
Closures of Houses of Worship

In Bekasi, outside Jakarta, Islamist groups have regularly
campaigned against “illegal churches” and pressured the government
to close them down, citing the regulation on house of worship construction.
Asia Lumbantoruan, a 51-year-old Batak church elder, told Human Right Watch
that between 1993 and 2007 his HKBP Ciketing church bought three plots of land
and a house on Puyuh Raya Street to hold their Sunday services in and build a church.
They always failed despite obtaining the requisite number of signatures from
community members for their church building. They have faced continued
intimidation, two arson attacks, and violence since their first procurement in
1993, from Islamists who tried to block their church construction. As a result
they have had to move from house to house to conduct their Sunday service, a
common cat-and-mouse game among thousands of Christians in Java to avoid the
prohibition of use of private homes to worship.

In 2010, representatives of militant Islamist groups
including the FPI appeared outside the worship site every Sunday with 300−400 supporters to
protest the services, which were being conducted in the open. According
to Lumbantoruan, FPI members disturbed the service by bringing loud speakers
and frightening the women and girls. They also attacked church members
repeatedly.[183] The
FPI accused the church of fraudulently obtaining the required neighborhood
signatures and setting up an “illegal church.”[184]

FPI’s influence and its campaign continued to grow,
and in January 2012, church activists reported seeing Murhali Barda, the FPI
leader involved in the Ciketing protests, joining efforts to close three other
churches in Kaliabang, north Bekasi district.[185]
These three other churches were closed on February 12, 2012.[186]

According to Rev. Palti
Panjaitan of HKBP Filadelfia church, Bekasi has 33 HKBP churches: 15 of them
are located in Bekasi regency and 18 in Bekasi mayoralty. The 15 HKBP
congregations in the regency have been denied permits, despite obtaining the
relevant neighborhood approvals necessary under the 2006 decree but not
permission from the Ministry of Religious Affairs and FKUB. Local authorities
have consequently forced them to close their buildings and churchgoers have
resorted to using private houses, shop-houses, restaurants, or office buildings
to hold Sunday services.[187] In an attempt to prevent even private worship by
Batak churches, Islamist websites have branded them “illegal
churches.”[188]

The Bekasi mayoralty on February 12, 2012, sealed three
churches following pressure from FPI Bekasi: the Indonesian Church of Christ
Loving (Gereja Kristus Rahmani Indonesia, GKRI), HKBP Kaliabang, and the
Pentecost Church.[189] When
closing down the three churches, the Bekasi FKUB’s ’secretary,
Hasnul Khalid, said his office had recorded 260 houses of worship without
permits in Bekasi, calling on these 260 congregations to immediately obtain
permits.[190]

Jaendar Gultom of HKBP Kaliabang, Bekasi, admitted that his
church had no permit, believing none was necessary when it was built inside a
Batak-dominated Christian neighborhood in 2003. But the Bekasi mayoralty closed
down his church as well as two neighboring churches in February 2012. Gultom
told Human Rights Watch:

Now we do our Sunday service outside our church building.
We built a tent and took our chairs, altar, and other equipment out. It’s
strange that we have a building but we cannot use it. We have to be patient.
We’re applying for the permit now. It might take a long time. We have to
be patient.[191]

Alexander Adrian Makawangkel
of the Santo Joannes Baptista church in Parung, Bogor regency, has tried to get
a permit for his church since his congregation bought land for the church in
1993. They still have no approval from the government. He told Human Rights
Watch:

We applied for our church permit, getting more than the
required signatures, lobbying various government bodies. We’ve been doing
it for more than 15 years. We still haven’t got it.[192]

In November 2010, Bogor Regent Rachmat Yasin issued a letter
to the St. Joannes Baptista church in Parung asking the church to stop using
the land for worship purposes.[193] At the
same time, he wrote another letter to the Director General of Human Rights at
the Ministry of Law and Human Rights in Jakarta. Yasin said that the church had
not met the requirement under the 2006 decree for building a church and that
Muslim organizations in Parung had protested the building of the church.[194]

According to Rev. Gomar
Gultom, secretary general of the Communion of Churches in Indonesia and himself
a HKBP pastor, in Java it is relatively easy to get signatures from at least 60
Muslim neighbors to obtain a permit. But obtaining approval from the Ministry
of Religious Affairs and FKUB can be very tough. In several Muslim-majority
areas, both agencies are usually controlled, directly or indirectly, by
individuals who see Christianity as a threat. They see the construction of new
churches as a threat to their political status. This has occurred with HKBP
Filadelfia and the Santo Joannes Baptista churches, which secured enough
neighborhood signatures but failed to obtain the letter of approval from the
two agencies.

How could we ask Muslims to sign for the permit? The
closest Muslim family lives around 500 meters from our church. The next one is
about two kilometers. How could we find 60? That decree might work in urban
areas. But it’s impossible to implement inside a plantation.[195]

In May 2012, in Singkil,
southern Aceh, FPI militants adopted the same approach, protesting against
“illegal” churches and demanding that the government close them
down. It produced quick results. In less than a week, the Singkil government
sealed 19 churches and one native-faith house of worship. All of these houses
of worship were actually built before the 2006 decree; some were even
established during Dutch or Japanese rule.[196]

Christian churches are not the only group to encounter
problems under the decree. A Wikileaks cable released in August 2011, but dated
January 2007, states that several Indonesian Hindu leaders told the US Embassy
in Jakarta that the 2006 house of worship decree made it difficult for
non-Muslims to build new places of worship due to obstruction from the Ministry
of Religious Affairs and the FKUB.[197]

I Made Erata, the chairman of the Indonesian Hindu Community
(Parisada Hindu Dharma Indonesia, PHDI), told Human Rights Watch that given the
restrictive climate for Hindus in Indonesia, his organization was forced to
find new places to build temples. PHDI decided to establish new temples inside
police or military complexes, cooperating with Balinese Hindus who serve in the
police or military institutions.”[198]

Human Rights Watch found at least one case in which a Muslim
minority community experienced difficulties in building a mosque. Since 2002,
Muslim families in Batuplat, Alak district, Kupang, on Timor island in East
Nusa Tenggara province, have faced difficulties in building a mosque due to
protests from Christians in the predominantly Christian area. Some Christian
groups protested the Muslim community using a building they owned for Friday
prayers. Subsequently, the mosque committee and the Kupang government,
following the procedures set forth under the 2006 decree, agreed that the Kupang
government would provide an alternative site.

After months of negotiations, in 2008, the Kupang government
bought land as an alternative site about 600 meters away from the first site.
After obtaining the requisite number of signatures from Muslim and Christian
residents, both the Ministry of Religious Affairs in Kupang and the FKUB
approved the building of the mosque.[199] Kupang
Mayor Daniel Adoe signed the building permit and laid the first stone on June
24, 2010.[200]

However, continued protests from Christian congregations in
Batuplat, particularly the Evangelical Church in Timor (Gereja Masehi Injili di
Timor, GMIT), the largest church in Timor, have led to the suspension of mosque
construction. Rev. Judith Nunuhitu-Folabessy of a GMIT congregation in Batuplat
said, “Our Christian brothers and sisters in Java have to obey the 2006
regulation. We want that regulation to be implemented here as well. If we
don’t want to follow that regulation to the letter, then it should not be
implemented that way in other parts of Indonesia.”[201]

Attack on Shia Boarding
School

Human Rights Watch
documented a 2011 attack by Sunni militants on a Shia boarding school in
Bangil, near Surabaya, East Java. Bangil, an important town for Indonesia's
Shia community, has an elite Shia school called the Islam Pesantren Foundation
(Yayasan Pesantren Islam, YAPI), which runs a kindergarten, primary school,
middle school, and two high schools.[202] On February 15, 2011, more than 200 militants
entered YAPI and destroyed school property. In the course of defending
themselves, nine teenage students were injured.

Harassment against the YAPI school dates back to 2007. In
November 2007, the head of the Sunni al-Bayyinat Foundation in Surabaya, Thohir
al Kaff, delivered a sermon in Bangil calling on the audience “to
cleanse” Bangil of its Shia members.[203]
Following the sermon, a group attacked the school, throwing stones, shouting at
teachers and kicking the doors. No one was ever arrested or charged for this
attack.

There were four more attacks on the school in 2010 and 2011.
According to police reports and YAPI school officials, a Bangil mosque had
organized weekly anti-Shia sermons on Wednesday evenings and broadcast them via
public radio with speakers from the Sunni group Ahli Sunnah Wal Jamaah group
and other Sunni clerics.

Members of the YAPI school administration told Human Rights
Watch that they believe the militants who attacked the school attended these
regular gatherings at the Bangil mosque.

According to a police report, on December 19, 2010, three
bullets struck windows of the YAPI female student dormitory.[204]
The school believes it was an anti-Shia attack. On February 12 and 14, 2011,
unknown individuals stoned the YAPI female student dormitory, breaking tiles,
the ceiling, and a window.[205]

Then, on the afternoon of
February 15, 2011, approximately 200 men on motorcycles attacked the YAPI
school, throwing stones, smashing windows, and destroying a security guard
post. Teenage students, who were playing soccer in a nearby field, attempted to
defend their school. Human Rights Watch has seen a video recording of the
incident in which several men make anti-Shia comments such as “Syiah
Laknatulloh” (Shia is condemned by Allah).

An 18-year-old YAPI student told Human Rights Watch:

I was playing computer when I heard the noise. I went out
and saw about 20of them inside the school, smashing windows and destroying the
guard post. I summoned my classmates. About 30 students came out. We used
everything, stones, sticks. It was about 30 minutes until the police arrived
and fired warning shots.[206]

The attackers left after the
police fired warning shots, but the incident left nine students injured, four
seriously that they required hospitalization. One suffered permanent eye
damage.[207]

The February 2011 attack received considerable media
attention and prompted police to arrest and file cases against six men with the
Sidoarjo district court. The six men said they were members of the Ahli Sunnah
Wal Jamaah group. The Sidoarjo court found them guilty for using violence
against the students. They were sentenced to three months and 21 days in
prison. “This punishment is a warning so that the convicts won’t
repeat their crime," said Chief Judge Sutjahjo Padmo Wasono.[208]

Prosecutions under
Blasphemy and Conversion Laws

Blasphemy and conversion laws
have been used to impose criminal penalties on members of religious minorities
in violation of their rights to freedom of religion and expression. Bakor Pakem
(The Coordinating Board for Monitoring Mystical Beliefs in Society) has been
particularly aggressive in pressuring the authorities to bring blasphemy
prosecutions in recent years.

In Dharmasraya, West Sumatra,
Bakor Pakem led the prosecution of Alexander An, an administrator of the
“Minang Atheist” Facebook group. He was eventually acquitted of
blasphemy but in June 2012 the Sijunjung court sentenced him to two-and-a-half
years in prison and a fine of IDR100 million (around US$11,000), for inciting
public unrest via his Facebook account.

Shia followers have also been targeted. For years, Islamist
Sunnis actively campaigned against the Shia community in Sampang regency,
Madura, and against its cleric, Tajul Muluk. In July 2012, Muluk was convicted
on blasphemy charges and sentenced to two years’ imprisonment. A higher
court later changed the sentence to four years imprisonment.

On January 1, 2012, the Indonesian Ulama Council in Sampang
issued a fatwa, blaming what it calls “the teaching of Tajul Muluk”
as a blasphemy against Islam and demanding the government prosecute Muluk.[209]

Ulamas from East Java went to Jakarta in January 2012 to
urge the Indonesian Ulama Council to issue an anti-Shia fatwa, arguing that
Shia Islam in East Java had created unrest and endangered “religious
harmony in Indonesia.”[210] The delegation
also met with the House of Representatives and Minister of Religious Affairs
Suryadharma Ali, after which Ali publicly stated, “Shia is against Islam.
Shia is heretical. Anyone who thinks that Shia is not heretic is himself a
heretic.”[211] These
public actions also increased the pressure on police to investigate allegations
of blasphemy against Shia.

On January 4, 2012, the Sampang chief prosecutor, Danang
Purwoko Adji Susesno, as a member of Bakor Pakem, called on the Attorney
General’s Office to ban “Tajul Muluk’s teachings” and
stated in a letter that his Sampang office would press blasphemy charges
against Muluk. Susesno made various claims about Tajul Muluk’s teachings
and why they were contrary to Islam.[212] The
authorities questioned Tajul Muluk in February 2012, and charged him with
blasphemy and “unpleasant misconduct” on April 24, 2012.

The Sampang court sentenced him for blasphemy to two years
in prison in July 2012.[213] In
September 2012, the East Java high court had his sentence changed to four
years. He appealed again and the Supreme Court kept the four years punishment
in January 2013.[214]

Bakor Pakem also played a role in initiating the blasphemy
prosecution of Andreas Guntur, the leader of the spiritual group Amanat
Keagungan Ilahi, who was sentenced to four years’ imprisonment in March
2012 by the Klaten court, Central Java, for alleged unconventional Islamic
teachings.

In October 2010, Antonius Richmond Bawengan, a controversial
preacher from Jakarta, distributed a leaflet about the three Abrahamic
religions (offering his own interpretations of Judaism’s Yahweh,
Christianity’s Jesus Christ, and Islam’s Allah). His leaflet
angered Muslims in Temanggung, Central Java, prompting police to arrest him. On
February 8, 2011, the Temanggung court convicted Bawengan of blasphemy and
sentenced him to five years’ imprisonment for his distribution of the
leaflets.

In Sukadana, a small town in Lampung province, Sumatra, a
court convicted two Baha’i members, Syahroni and Iwan Purwanto, of
“trying to convert” Muslim children to the Baha’i faith. The
East Lampung district court in November 2010 sentenced the two men to five
years in prison. They appealed but the Lampung high court reinstated the
district court verdict in January 2011. The defendants have appealed the ruling
to the Supreme Court.

According to court documents, in April 2010, Riza
Fadilla’s Baha’i uncle, Iwan Purwanto, asked his nephew to tutor
his seven-year-old son. The nephew agreed to tutor him, and the class
eventually grew to include another Baha’i boy and 14 Muslim children,
mostly of primary school age, as well as three other tutors, including a Muslim
teenager.[215] The
group studied on Sundays on the second floor of a shop house in the Sidorejo
market, Sekampung Udik district, belonging to local Baha’i leader
Syahroni.

Syahroni and Iwan Purwanto were accused of attempting to
covert Muslim children to the Baha’i faith.[216]
Eventually, prosecutors charged the two but not under the blasphemy law.
Instead, they used article 86 of the 2002 Child Protection Act, which states,
“whoever converts or attempts to convert children to other religion will
be charged up to five years prison or fine of 100 million rupiah or
both.” The two men are being detained at Sukadana prison, awaiting their
appeal.[217]

Prosecutions under the
2008 Anti-Ahmadiyah Decree

The Jemaah Ahmadiyah Indonesia, the national organization
for Ahmadis, has reported that at least 33 Ahmadiyah mosques have been
vandalized, sealed, occupied, or forced to close by the local authorities, since
the Indonesian government issued its anti-Ahmadiyah decree in June 2008. In
some cases, Islamist militants have closed the mosques themselves, with police
failing to act or actively siding with the militants.[218]

In Bekasi mayoralty, Islamists unsuccessfully urged local
officials to shut down the mosque in the Pondok Gede neighborhood, the only
Ahmadiyah mosque in the city. They then called on the acting Bekasi mayor,
Rahmat Effendi, to adopt a provincial decree. The decree, adopted on October
13, 2011, stated that the Ahmadiyah members and their organization should stop
“all activities,” including “proselytizing, telling stories,
recommending or other acts which imply of proselytizing.”[219]

Rahmat Rahmadijaya, the Ahmadiyah imam in Bekasi, told Human
Rights Watch that a week earlier, on November 4, 2011 at 7:30 a.m.:

[T]he MUI came here and asked us not to use the mosque for
the sake of our own security. But our right to worship is our business with
God, no one has the right to stop us. They said, “What if [a provocateur]
comes with here with FPI? What will you do?”

I said we will have a dialogue. We will talk quietly and
explain to them we have the right to worship. The MUI left and the police and
troops came at 9 a.m. They let us have the Friday prayer but told us we should
be fast. We have seen the same pattern for the last three Fridays. [The
protesters] hope the MUI can persuade us not to worship. Usually after Friday
prayers we stay to socialize with each other, but now security asks us to be
quick.

Rahmat Rahmadijaya showed Human Rights Watch the cell phone
text messages he had received from unknown persons, suggesting that Islamist
groups in the area were mobilizing against the Ahmadiyah:

“Eliminate Ahmadiyah from Pondok Gede”

“Unite our force”

“Get Ready”

“Close all activities if no government decision by
Friday. All Muslims, let’s go down to the location and make it very
clear.”[220]

Titik Sartika, the head of the mosque’s women’s
division, told Human Rights Watch:

We get nervous every time we go to the mosque, especially
those with children. We’re afraid to bring them. We also have Sunday
school, which now is done home-to-home. We are very afraid. The women often
don’t come to pray if we see people in white robes [FPI].[221]

Rahmadijaya described how conditions have deteriorated in
recent years:

Prior to 2005, even non-Ahmadiyah Muslims prayed here.
We’ve been here for 22 years. We have never faced these problems before.
We are a part of this community. Now we are vilified. The problems started in
2005 after the MUI fatwa. Things got worse after the 2008 decree and got
intimidating since the Bekasi decree.

The Ahmadiyah members are afraid to legally challenge the
Bekasi mayor’s decree. “The decree only limits our activities, the
preaching, but in terms of worship, it did not ban it,” said Rahmadijaya.[222]
However, Islamist groups have misinterpreted the decree and used it to call for
the mosque’s closure.

In Cianjur, about three hours’ drive south of Jakarta,
the Ahmadiyah community has faced intimidation and harassment since West Java
Governor Ahmad Heryawan, himself an MUI board member and a PKS politician,
issued an anti-Ahmadiyah decree on March 2, 2011, which bans “all
Ahmadiyah proselytizing activities.”[223]

Hafiz, the head of a small
Ahmadiyah mosque in Cipeuyeum, Cianjur, told Human Rights Watch that he
received a phone call from the local military officer informing him of the
governor’s decree and that harassment soon followed. On March 17, 2011,
about 100 men appeared in the Cipeuyeum mosque. Two Ahmadiyah men were coerced
to sign a statement saying that the Ahmadiyah would no longer use the mosque
for prayer or meetings. But in December 2011, the Ahmadiyah members started
quietly using the mosque again.[224]

On February 17, 2012, Hasan Suwandi, the mosque’s
guard, was alone when a mob surrounded the mosque. They brought down the iron
fence, using sledge hammers, crowbars, and iron bars to tear down the mosque.
Suwandi told Human Rights Watch:

I immediately ran away from the parsonage with my grandson.
But I forgot to turn off the stove. So I returned again and turned off the
stove. It was very quick, about 30 minutes, when they brought down the roof.
Police and military officers only arrived when the mosque was already torn
down.[225]

Harassment of Ahmadiyah
School Children

Members of the Ahmadiyah community told Human Rights Watch
that their children have suffered harassment at public school from their
teachers and administrators. The extent of the problem is difficult to measure
but anecdotal evidence suggests that it is deeply rooted. In Cianjur and
Cikeusik, both located in western Java, Human Rights Watch documented cases
where Islamic studies teachers verbally abused Ahmadiyah students because of
their faith or preached anti-Ahmadiyah rhetoric that stoked harassment.

An Ahmadiyah mother of a 17-year-old from Cikeusik described
to Human Rights Watch the ongoing harassment her son endured from his boarding
school in Malingping, near Cikeusik, Banten. Another son and her niece, both
studied in a neighboring high school, did not get school transfer documents
when their families were forced to leave Cikeusik. She told Human Rights Watch:

The teacher said, “Ahmadiyah is false. They should be
eliminated.” He called my son a heretic. My son is a quiet boy. He just
listened. The teacher said, “Ahmadiyah is tarnishing Islam.” Later
the school principal would not allow him to come with me when we moved to
Jakarta. They refused to sign the school transfer letter and they kept his
report cards.[226]

Ismael Suparman, the
Ahmadiyah imam in Cikeusik, said five of seven Ahmadiyah students did not get
their transfer cards when their families were forced to flee Cikeusik in
February 2011. “I had to send my four children to go with their
[Filipina] mother to Zamboanga City, Mindanao, [in the Philippines] so that
they could go to school,” said Suparman.[227]

In Sukadana, Cianjur, an
Ahmadiyah teacher told Human Rights Watch that Ahmadiyah students and teachers
faced repeated harassment for their faith. In July 2011, an inspector from the
Ministry of Education visited her district and in a speech to around 200
teachers said that all schools and teachers must obey the 2008 anti-Ahmadiyah
decree. In what the teacher described to Human Rights Watch as “veiled
threats,” the inspector told the teachers that the decree orders Ahmadis
to “stop activities which deviate from the principal teachings of
Islam” and noted that the crimes carry a maximum penalty of five years in
prison.[228]

Five Ahmadiyah elementary and middle school students in
Sukadana, West Java, told Human Rights Watch they were bullied by classmates
who were encouraged by discriminatory statements from their teachers. An eighth
grader said he was beaten by his classmates after the weekly anti-Ahmadiyah
speech by their religious teacher. “I reported it to my parents.
I’m afraid to report the beating to the school. I’m afraid the
teachers will report my parents to Garis,” he said, referring to the
Islam Reform Movement (Gerakan Reformis Islam, Garis), a militia group frequently
involved in anti-Ahmadiyah campaigns in Cianjur regency.[229]

Discriminatory
Administrative Policies

In Indonesia, state discrimination on the basis of religion
extends beyond the building of churches, mosques, and temples. Various
government regulations discriminate against religious minorities, ranging from
the provision of ID cards, birth and marriage certificates, and access to other
government services. For instance, local officials in Kuningan regency, West
Java province, denied an Ahmadiyah man the ability to register his marriage
because of his religion.[230] Two Baha’i
families in Sukadana, Lampung, reported that government officials forced them
to list “Islam” as their official religion on their ID cards, birth
and marriage certificates.[231]

Human Rights Watch also interviewed Dewi Kanti, a Sundanese
woman, a follower of the Sunda Wiwitan native faith, who married a Javanese
Catholic man. The civil registration office refused to accept the marriage
because they did not recognize her religion. If they have children, the
babies’ birth certificates will not list the father’s name.[232]
Without proper birth certificates, the children will be considered
“bastards” under the law, incurring the attendant social pressures.[233]

The Bakor Pakem office in West Java has refused to recognize
Sunda Wiwitan wedding ceremonies since 1964 and even detained a Sunda Wiwitan
priest (the father of Dewi Kanti) for three months in 1964 for officiating at
the marriage of five Wiwitan couples.[234]

Kanti herself married her husband, a Javanese faith
believer, in a Catholic church, in March 2002. She told Human Rights Watch:

My husband chose Catholic as his official religion. But
he’s practicing his Kejawen faith. If we insisted to marry with our own
religions, we won’t have birth certificates for our children, at least,
without my husband’s name. The stripe in our ID cards creates another
stigma in Indonesia.[235]

All Indonesian citizens must obtain a national ID card at
age 17. The document is essential for conducting basic transactions like
opening a bank account, obtaining a driver’s license, entering
university, obtaining employment, or collecting a pension. It is also needed to
apply for birth, marriage, and death certificates.

Starting in 1978, the Home Affairs Ministry required all
citizens to state their religion on the card, providing five options: Islam,
Catholic, Protestant, Hinduism and Buddhism (omitting Confucianism, a
previously recognized religion that was discriminated against during
Suharto’s rule).[236]

As a result, people from hundreds of smaller native faiths
like Kejawen (Javanese), Wiwitan (Sunda), Kaharingan (Dayak), Parmalin (Batak),
and followers of religions like Judaism, Sikhism, and Confucianism, were forced
to choose one of the six religions when they applied for an ID card.[237]
Couples of mixed religions also had extra difficulties in getting married
because their ID cards showed their different religions.[238]

In 2006, the Indonesian parliament passed the Population
Administrative Law, which states that an individual is no longer required to
list their religion on their ID card.[239] But
the reality is very different. Many civil servants still do not know of the new
law. Religious minorities face problems if they refuse to choose one of the six
religions that these officials recognize. “They simply say you’re a
godless woman if you want to keep the column blank,” said Dewi Kanti, the
Sunda Wiwitan believer, whose ID card has a blank space after
“religion.”[240]

In Manis Lor, Kuningan regency, the biggest Ahmadiyah
village on Java, a 34-year-old Ahmadiyah man told Human Rights Watch that young
Ahmadiyah couples in the area faced significant administrative obstacles to
getting married. There are approximately 3,000 Ahmadiyah families in Manis Lor,
located 45 kilometers south of Cirebon, a major city in West Java. Young
couples often need to go to Cirebon or Jakarta to register for marriage, having
to stage a fake relocation and re-register with new ID cards in the new
location, because Kuningan authorities refuse to marry Ahmadiyah couples.

The man said that on attempting to register his marriage in
Manis Lor in 2010, the Kuningan authorities informed him that the Kuningan
government had officially instructed the Islamic Affairs office in Manis Lor
not to register any Ahmadiyah marriage. He was forced to marry elsewhere:

I had also to conduct my wedding quietly with very few
family members. We’re afraid the neighbors would report our marriage.[241]

In Sukadana, Lampung, on Sumatra, Human Rights Watch
interviewed two Baha’i families who were not able to obtain ID cards and
birth certificates. One of the families was unable to obtain a correct birth
certificate for their child.

Riyon Irfanus, a 26-year-old bicycle shop owner, said he had
gone to the Sukadana administration office, asking for a new ID card but the
official denied him one:

They initially printed Islam as my religion. I refused that
card and insisted that I wanted to have Baha’i as my religion. I
don’t want to live a lie. They didn’t want to do that. I returned
again and again over the next five months. They finally told me to go to the
Ministry of Religious Affairs. If [the ministry] agreed, the administration
office would print my ID card.

The Ministry of Religious
Affairs told him that they were not authorized to deal with the ID card, and to
date Riyon said that he has no ID card and has had difficulties obtaining a
marriage certificate. Riyon said in order to register his child’s birth
certificate he had to register as a Christian because the Civil Registration
Office refused to print Baha’i as his religion.[242]

In practice, members of religious minorities often find they
are in a catch-22. If the religion column is left blank, which is legally
possible in accordance with the 2006 Population Administration Law, government
officials accuse them of being an atheist–which is punishable under the
blasphemy law. If they select one of the six religions now offered, regardless
of their own religious beliefs, they can be accused of falsifying their
identity. “The ID card is our daily challenge,” said Soesiana Tri
Ekawati, a national Baha’i leader in Jakarta, adding that many Baha’i
members have been pressured by government officials to select the Islam option
in Muslim-majority areas, or the Christianity option in Christian-majority
areas.[243]

IV. State Failure to
Protect Religious Minorities from Violence

They dragged me out of the water. They held my hands and
cut my belt with a machete. They cut my shirt, pants and undershirt, leaving me
in my underwear. They took 2.5 million rupiah (US$270) and my Blackberry. They
tried to take off my underwear and cut my penis. I was laying in the fetal
position. I tried to protect my face but my left eye was stabbed. Then I heard
them say, “He is dead, he is dead.”

−Ahmad Masihuddin, 25, injured in mob attack on Ahmadiyah
gathering in Cikeusik, western Java, on February 6, 2011, after police present
at the scene fail to intervene.[244]

The Indonesian government at
the national and local levels repeatedly has failed to protect−either through law enforcement, deterrent measures,
or prosecutions−minority
religious communities under threat or attack from militant Islamist groups.
Militant groups have either been directly involved in attacks on minority
houses of worship or have incited mobs of local residents or groups of thugs to
commit such violence. At times with the assistance of heads of local
administrative units such as Rukun Tetangga (Neighborhood Associations) and
Rukun Warga (Citizen Associations), Islamist leaders have organized protests designed
to intimidate or threaten prayer meetings and other religious gatherings.[245]

There are both political and bureaucratic reasons for the
Indonesian government’s failure to fulfill its legal obligations to
protect Indonesia’s minority religions from threat or attack from
militant Islamist groups.

The unwillingness of Indonesian authorities to forcefully
intervene to prevent violence against religious minorities or prosecute those
responsible can make the government responsible for continuing abuses. The UN
Human Rights Committee states in its General Comment 31 on the legal
obligations of states that a “fail[ure] to take appropriate measures or
to exercise due diligence to prevent, punish, investigate or redress the harm
caused … by private persons or entities” in which Covenant rights
are infringed upon, may give rise to violations by the state.[246]
In addition, when rights are violated, the state “must ensure that those
responsible are brought to justice. As with failure to investigate, failure to
bring to justice perpetrators of such violations could in and of itself give
rise to a separate breach of the Covenant.”[247]

In some areas of Indonesia,
the intimidation and threats against religious communities by Islamist groups
have persisted over time, with little effort from government officials to
curtail the violations. Of particular note is the continued coddling of the
Islamic Defenders Front (Front Pembela Islam, FPI), which has engaged
repeatedly in acts of violent vigilantism. As the International Crisis Group
noted: “[N]ot only have the governor of Jakarta, the … national
police [chief] and the religious affairs minister all appeared at FPI events,
but the … police chief appeared to welcome FPI as a partner in
maintaining law and order in Jakarta. Taking on allies known for their
intolerance is not the way to inculcate religious harmony.”[248]

Members of Christian and other minority religions
interviewed by Human Rights Watch said that they felt under constant pressure
from militant groups, the Indonesian Ulama Council, the Ministry of Religious
Affairs, certain police officers, and local government officials. They said
this pressure drove some members of minority religions to stop worshipping or
abandon their houses of worship.

When religious minorities
seek to have their rights enforced, local authorities and the police may
instead try to compel all sides to reach an “amicable solution.”
The National Police in Jakarta told Human Rights Watch, “We invite all
religious figures to make a deal.”[249] Yet such arrangements frequently mean that
religious minorities are pressured to forsake rights due to them. For instance,
to satisfy security concerns raised by government officials or the police,
religious minorities will be asked to move from their respective areas.

Human Rights Watch documented 10 cases where police failed
to investigate complaints of violence against religious minorities. On the few
occasions where authorities have made arrests, it has been mostly because of
intense media coverage. In nine cases documented by Human Rights Watch,
including the attack and burning of HKBP Ciketing church in Bekasi and the
arson attacks against four churches in Kuantan Singingi, Riau, the police
investigations were woefully inadequate. While some arrests were made, other
suspects were not properly investigated.

Among the cases investigated by Human Rights Watch, in only
one did local authorities respond appropriately to violence against a religious
minority. After Islamist militants burned three churches and a Christian school
in Temanggung in February 2011, the local government immediately distanced themselves
from the assailants. Central Java police dispatched hundreds of officers to
restore order and arrest the perpetrators.[250]

Police Siding with
Islamist Militants

Police at times have sided with Islamist militants at the
expense of the rights of religious minorities ostensibly to avoid violence.
After an act of incitement or physical attack by Islamists, instead of
investigating and prosecuting those responsible, police have sometimes tried to
convince the religious minority targeted by the attack to leave the area or
close their houses of worship in the interests of public order. For instance,
an Ahmadiyah imam in Sukadana, Campaka district, Cianjur, told Human Rights
Watch that the police urged him to leave Sukadana because his presence would
upset Muslims and might lead to violence.[251]

The reasons for police
failure to protect religious minorities from physical attack vary from case to
case. In some instances, police actively collude with the attackers for
religious, economic, or political reasons; in other instances, they lack clear
instructions from above or feel outnumbered by militants. In all cases, the
poor police response reflects institutional failure to uphold the law and hold
perpetrators of violent crimes to account. Some police officers were even
involved in openly petitioning the ban of the Shia faith in Madura Island, an
obvious break of the Indonesian police regulation, but they were never
questioned.

In June 2011, police entered
an Ahmadiyah mosque in Sukadana with members of the militant group Islam Reform
Movement (Gerakan Reformis Islam, Garis). A video shows Adjunct Police
Commissioner Rusnaedi, the Campaka police chief, arriving at the mosque with
Garis militants, erecting two large signs stating that Ahmadiyah activities are
prohibited.

Mukhtar Assegaf, who runs a Shia school in Bangil that was
the scene of a violent attack in February 2011, said that he had reported
earlier attacks to the police:

We keep on reporting the stone throwing, the harassment,
breaking our windows and even bringing spears, sickles, and bats into our
compound, but the police keep on talking about building communication with
these thugs.[252]

In Sukadana, Lampung, police
sided with Islamist militants against two Baha’i followers. Following
pressure from Muslim community members who had signed a letter calling for the Baha’i
to convert to Islam or be removed from the village, the East Lampung deputy
police chief, Dwi Sulistyawan, and the two Baha’i members, Syahroni and
Iwan Purwanto, agreed to have a “musyawarah” or
“consensus” at the East Lampung police station on June 2, 2010. The
Baha’i leaders signed a statement prepared by the police agreeing to stop
all Baha’i “economic and religious activities.” Police
officers as well as officials of the Ministry of Religious Affairs and the
Indonesian Ulama Council witnessed the signing of the statement.[253]

In Sampang, Madura, in February 2006, four police officers
at the Omben district signed an open statement, asking Madura ulamas to issue a
joint fatwa to ban Shiaism.[254] The
police officers obviously side with the Sunni majority when the Shia minority
complained about the harassment. Later the Sampang police precinct, which
supervises the Omben unit, also took part in pressuring Shia clerics to leave
their village.[255]

Police and local authorities have also used the threat of
violent attacks by militant groups to stop religious minority groups from
carrying out public prayers and religious activities. At HKBP Ciketing, the
police prevented the congregation from accessing church land following the
September 4, 2010 stabbing attack on members of the congregation. Church elder,
Asia Lumbantoruan said, “The government forced us to move because they
said we have to prevent a bloodbath. They said, ‘We won’t be responsible
for what happens if you continue to have prayers here.’”[256]

The Bekasi police investigated the stabbing of Asia
Lumbantoruan and charged 13 attackers. FPI chairman Murhali Barda, who used his
Facebook account to mobilize Muslims to harass the HKBP Ciketing congregation,
and Adji Achmad Faisal, who was found to have stabbed Lumbantoruan, were
convicted by the Bekasi district court, sentencing them to three to
seven-and-a-half months in prison.

Police Failure to
Prevent Violence Despite Warning Signs

In cases documented by Human Rights Watch, local governments
and police in Bekasi, Bogor, Cianjur, Kuantan Singingi, Kupang, Sampang, and
Sukadana, failed to adequately protect religious minorities who faced
persecution or harassment. As noted above, four HKBP congregations in Bekasi
have faced frequent intimidation: HKBP Filadelfia in Jejalen Jaya village; HKBP
Getsemane in Jati Mulya area; HKBP Pondok Timur Indah in Ciketingarea (better
known as HKBP Ciketing); and HKBP Kaliabang in the Kaliabang area, North
Bekasi. These four congregations have not been able to use their church
buildings because police have failed to protect them from Islamist militant
groups.

Asia Lumbantoruan of HKBP
Ciketing in Bekasi told Human Rights Watch that on August 1, 2010, FPI members
tried to interrupt their Sunday service. The FPI had been using Facebook to
mobilize Sunni Muslims in the vicinity to close down the church since early
2010. Lumbantoruan said that on August 1, around 1,000 Islamists and 600 police
arrived. The police tried to hold the militants back from the church but failed
to prevent them from attacking the church, resulting in more than 30 injuries.
Lumbantoruan told Human Rights Watch:

There was pushing and many of us fell. When we fell, they
[the Islamists] ran forward and trampled and beat us, including the two
reverends. When one reverend was being beaten, the police were just looking. We
gave the police the names of those responsible. The police did nothing.[257]

Lumbantoruan also described how young men on motorbikes
stabbed him and attacked a female minister on September 4, 2010. Police again
stood by as the violence unfolded, only to intervene after the attack had
begun, failing to prevent an escalation or make any immediate arrests of
perpetrators. Lumbantoruan said:

A motorcyclist came down the road and tried to hit me. When
I looked down I saw that I was bleeding. The police were 100 meters away. The
attackers also had friends nearby. They attacked and beat the Reverend Luspida
Simanjuntak until she was on the ground. The police put me and the reverend on
a police motorcycle. The thugs pulled her off the motorcycle and hit her three
times with a wooden stick. The police sped off with us on the back, leaving the
congregation behind.[258]

The harassment and attacks, combined with the
congregants’ knowledge that the police would do little to protect them,
has made some individuals are too frightened to participate in religious
events. Lumbantoruan said:

Our congregation used to be 500 people, but as the pressure
and harassment got too much, people stopped going to church and started to pray
elsewhere. The numbers reduced significantly because the government has kept on
telling us to leave and put us in different buildings and kept on having us
change our location.[259]

Police commissioner Herry Wibowo, a former Bekasi police
chief and now an officer at the internal branch of the National Police, told
Human Rights Watch that police have sometimes failed to protect religious
minorities in Bekasi but claimed that ensuring their protection is difficult
because there are more than 300 Christian churches in the region:

The police provide protection to all these churches every
Sunday. In Tambun district, we provided protection to the HKBP Filadelfia for
one year. Next door to the church is a madrasah. If there is a Sunday
mass, the noise provokes people [in the madrasah] who cannot tolerate
the sound.[260]

In 2010, HKBP Filadelfia began to hold Sunday services on
the street and faced weekly harassment. On January 26, 2012, an Islamist group
led by Haji Naimun began to use four large loudspeakers, blaring
Arabic-language Islamic music into the HKBP Filadelfia service only meters
away. Rev. Palti Panjaitan said the congregation could barely hear their own
hymns. According to Panjaitan:

They were shouting and yelling, “Close the church! Go
away! There must not be a church here!” or “Batak Pigs!”
Their numbers continued to increase each week. On a Saturday night, they dumped
dead chicken, cow dung and rotten eggs. We told the police and they said they
knew who the perpetrators were. They did nothing.[261]

The most brutal attack was on an Ahmadiyah group in
Cikeusik, Banten province, western Java. On February 6, 2011, 1,500 Islamist
militants attacked 21 members of the Ahmadiyah community outside a house in
Umbulan hamlet. Three Ahmadiyah men were killed and five were injured.

The attack was captured on
video by an Ahmadiyah wedding videographer, Arif Rachman, which was later
posted on the website YouTube.[262] The 28-minute video and Human Rights Watch interviews with
survivors shows that local police were present at the scene prior to the
attack, but many of them left soon after the crowd descended on the Ahmadiyah,
leaving the group vulnerable. The mob attacked the Ahmadiyah men with stones,
sticks and machetes while they chanted and shouted anti-Ahmadiyah slogans.

A 25-year-old Ahmadiyah man told Human Rights Watch:

After breakfast a police officer came to our house and told
us there was going to be a demonstration. Our expectation was 100 to 200
people. When the police came out of the house the mob already reached a nearby
bridge. It was 10 a.m.. I thought the police would stop them, but the mob
entered the house and the police did nothing. The group shouted, “You are
infidels! You are heretics!” We decided to defend ourselves. But we were
outnumbered.[263]

Another Ahmadiyah man, Ahmad Muhamad, described to Human
Rights Watch how he saw police equipped with riot control shields, sticks, and
teargas leave the scene as the mob approached the house. Others reported the
presence of a handful of officers who were present during the most brutal
moments of the attack. Some of these police officers remained at the scene, but
their meager number and their actions were inadequate to contain the attackers.

The video shows that the handful of police who witnessed the
attack did little to stem the violence. They were just meters away during the
killing of two of the men. One officer, Cikeusik police chief Madsupur, held up
his hands to stop the crowd as they approached the Ahmadiyah house.[264]

However, two officers did intervene to protect five of the
Ahmadiyah after three others had been bludgeoned to death. Muhammad Ahmad was
beaten with bamboo sticks on his face, badly fracturing his jaw:

The mob used their hands, sticks and machetes to bash my
jaw. They hit my left leg with a machete and the back of my head with a
machete. Some wore turbans on their heads and others were in white clothes and
other FPI accessories. They told me to recite the shahadah [Muslim prayer].[265]I did and when I did, they said,
“Don’t attack! He is a Muslim!”

He described how individual officers arrived at the scene
and ferried him away:

Suddenly a man used his body to protect me. By then the
police had arrived. They threw me inside a police car and the driver drove away
so fast. I think he [the driver] was saving himself from the mob, not me.[266]

After the attack, some police were less than sympathetic to
the victims. An Ahmadiyah woman told Human Rights Watch, “We were later
evacuated to the Pandeglang police station and stayed there for three days. A
Brimob [Mobile Brigade] officer told us, “You village idiots! You changed
religion only for Sarimie [material gain]!”[267]

The week following the attack, the National Police summoned
Banten province police chief Brig. Gen. Agus Kusnadi and Pandeglang regency
police chief Commissioner Alex Fauzi Rasad for questioning in Jakarta. The
National Police conducted an internal investigation into the Cikeusik violence.
At this writing, almost two years since the attack, the police have not
announced the results of their investigation. Only three low-ranking officers
were scheduled to be tried in Pandeglang on charges of being negligent in their
duties. They allegedly just watched the brutal attack, smoking.[268]

During the Temanggung riots in Central Java in February
2011, police responded quickly to anti-defendant violence that erupted
following the sentencing of a controversial religious preacher and former
Catholic, Antonius Richmond Bawengan, who was convicted of blasphemy against
Islam. Police managed to evacuate judges and prosecutors from court, where a
mob of hundreds of people had gathered chanting, “Kill! Kill!”
Islamist militants who had been in the courtroom began burning tires outside
the court house and then started targeting Christian sites.

The Central Java police immediately deployed hundreds of
anti-riot officers to Temanggung. Maj. Gen. Edward Aritonang, the Central Java
police chief, ordered his men to investigate the ringleaders who used text
messages to mobilize the gathering at the Temanggung district court.[270]
On February 13, 2011, police arrested Syihabuddin, a Muslim teacher at the
al-Hadist school in Temanggung for allegedly mobilizing Muslims to go to the
courthouse. Police also arrested 24 other rioters.

On June 14, 2011, the Semarang district court convicted
Syihabuddin of incitement, sentencing him to one year of imprisonment. Sixteen
other rioters were sentenced to between 5 to 10 months’ imprisonment.[271]

National Police officials in Jakarta told Human Rights Watch
they uphold religious freedom, including the right to worship, saying that it is
the constitutional right of all Indonesian citizens. Police referred to cases
they had investigated such as a stabbing in Bekasi, providing security to help
guard churches on Sundays, and working quickly to anticipate violence at an
Ahmadiyah mosque there. But they also asserted that they get no support from
politicians, who prefer to cater to voters. Brig. Gen. RM Panggabean, the
deputy of the legal division at the National Police, told Human Rights Watch:

In Cikeusik we underestimated the problem. There were so
many attackers. We were outnumbered. We have to learn from these mistakes. We
have taken disciplinary action. Those officers were demoted and transferred.[272]

Blaming Religious
Minorities

In a number of cases investigated by Human Rights Watch,
police threatened or charged members of religious minorities with blasphemy or
incitement, claiming their peaceful worship or public expression of their
beliefs was responsible for mob violence. In other cases, police failed to
intervene or pressured the minority community to stop their religious practices
to avoid violence. In Cikeusik, First Inspector Hasanuddin, the Cikeusik police
intelligence chief, testified in the Serang district court that it was the
refusal of the Ahmadiyah men to leave the house where they had gathered that
provoked the deadly attack on them.[273] Police
were quick to file charges against Deden Sujana, the Ahmadiyah security
advisor, claiming that he disobeyed police orders by refusing to leave the
house and for assaulting a militant who was threatening the Ahmadiyah with a
machete.

In the June 2010 Lampung case where a mob stoned Baha’i
houses, the lawyer for the two Baha’i men stated, “The Baha’i
members reported the intimidation to the police but got no response.”
Instead, the East Lampung police detained the two Baha’i men for
questioning relating to their alleged effort to convert Muslim children to Baha’ism.[274]

In the case of alleged atheist Alexander “Aan”
An, on January 18, 2012, more than a dozen men came to his office and accused
him of blasphemy. Some of the men beat Aan, prompting a police patrol to stop
and bring Aan to the Dharmasraya police station. Aan was later charged with
blasphemy, while no action was taken against the men who beat him up. Aan, who
grew up as a Muslim, told Human Rights Watch:

Facebook automatically makes our account a public one.
Everyone can read the posting on my Facebook wall. I never want to discredit
Islam. Of course I talk mostly about Islam because I know Islam more than other
religions.[275]

Perhaps the most emblematic
recent case of police blaming religious minorities is that of Shia cleric Tajul
Muluk, who was convicted of blasphemy. For years, the Shia community in
Nangkernang village, Omben district, Sampang regency, has faced problems from
government and religious authorities. In February 2006, 40 Sunni clerics and
four police officers signed a public statement declaring that Shia Islam is
heretical. The statement mentions two meetings that they had organized with
Shia clerics in which the Shia were told to return to Sunni Islam but refused
to do so. The statement calls on law enforcement agencies to enforce the
blasphemy law against Tajul Muluk. “We’re calling all four MUIs in
Madura to issue a joint fatwa about the danger of the Shia teaching that doubts
the originality of the Holy Quran, the justice of the companions of the Prophet,
and excessive reverence to Ahlul Bait,” the statement says. They named
their group the Ulama Consensus Forum (Forum Musyawarah Ulama, FMU). The first
FMU signatory was Ali Karrar, the senior cleric in Proppo, near Omben.[276]

The statement was the first step in an ongoing campaign against Shia in
Sampang. In 2009, Tajul Muluk had a disagreement with his younger brother
Roisul Hukama, which led Roisul to join the anti-Shia campaign in Madura. In
July 2011, police and Sampang officials persuaded Tajul Muluk to flee his
village, Nangkernang, and provided him with financial assistance to leave. He
slept in the Sampang police station for a week from July 23 till August 7,
2011.

Throughout 2011, Islamist militants stepped up the campaign
of harassment and intimidation against Shia in the Nangkernang hamlet. For
instance, on December 6, 2011, when celebrating Ashura, a day of spiritual
significance for Shia, Sunni militants tried to prevent some 60 Shia residents
from leaving their hamlet by blocking the road. Sunni villagers brandishing
sickles threatened to kill them and asked them to leave the village. Shia
leader Iklil al Milal says he asked the police to take action to end the
threats, but the police did not act.[277]

On December 29, 2011, Sunni militants attacked the
Nangkernang hamlet, burning houses and the madrasa, causing around 500 Shia
residents to flee.[278] Police
arrested and charged only one of the militants for the arson attack, and
instead focused their efforts on pressuring Shia clerics, including Tajul Muluk
and Iklil al Milal, to leave Nangkernang. The Ministry of Religious Affairs in
Sampang also said it would “supervise” hundreds of Shia to ensure
they learn Sunni Islam, based on the ministry’s assumption that the
solution to religious harmony is for Shia conversion to Sunnism.[279]

It was Tajul Muluk who ended
up in jail, charged with blasphemy and “unpleasant acts.” The
tactic of blaming and putting responsibility on members of religious
minorities, who are targeted by militants, is commonly used by Islamist groups
and their supporters. On July 12, 2012, the East Java court sentenced Tajul
Muluk to four years imprisonment for blasphemy.

The Shia community in Sampang Regency, East Java pleaded for
police protection during the Ramadan fasting month in August 2012, warning that
Shia communities in the area might be attacked by Sunni militants at the end of
Ramadan on August 20, 2012. The police ignored their warnings. On August 26,
2012 hundreds of Sunni militants associated with the Ulama Consensus Forum
attacked Shia homes in the Sampang village of Nangkernang. Those militants
burned down around 50 Shia houses, killing one man and seriously injuring
another.[280]
Several police officers on the scene stood by during the attack, refusing to
intervene.[281]
Sampang Regent Noor Tjahja has responded to criticism about his inability or
unwillingness to protect Shia’s in his district by stating “I
don’t care [about] human rights as long I protect those who voted for me
as their leader.”[282]

Failure to Investigate
Violence

The Indonesian police have failed to conduct adequate
investigations into attacks by Islamist groups against religious minorities.
Even when provided evidence such as eyewitness accounts and video or
photographic evidence, police routinely fail to arrest those implicated. For
instance, in Jejalen Jaya, Bekasi regency, Islamist groups used racist and
sectarian remarks to mobilize people to stop the HKBP Filadelfia church from
holding its Sunday service. On April 15, 2012, an identified Muslim man
threatened to slit the church pastor’s throat. A video shows some police
officers present but no action was taken against the man.[283]

Courtroom testimony in the Cikeusik case revealed
collaboration between local authorities and the Islamists. Witnesses at the
trial, including defendant cleric Ujang M. Arif, said that Umbulan village head
Mohammad Johar and local Indonesian Ulama Council secretary Ahmad Baghawi had
agreed to set February 6 as the date to forcibly remove the Ahmadiyah from
Cikeusik. Baghawi himself testified that he had taken part in a meeting to
determine the date to expel the Ahmadiyah from Cikeusik. But police did not
file a case against either Johar or Baghawi.[284]

Police investigations of the attack were woefully
inadequate. While police interviewed the cameraman who filmed the attack and
two of the five Ahmadiyah who were seriously injured, they failed to question
other Ahmadiyah who were injured or present during the attack or to ask them to
testify.

Ahmad Muhamad, a witness to the attacks, said he was not
given an opportunity to testify at the trial:

I might not recognize them one by one, but I could describe
the situation. We were just trying to defend our property. Hundreds of
Ahmadiyah properties have been destroyed [in West Java] and the government has
done almost nothing.[285]

Church elder Asia Lumbantoruan said that after the HKBP
Ciketing mob attack, the only official correspondence the church received was a
letter from the Ministry of Religious Affairs office in Bekasi instructing the
church not to hold services in Ciketing.

Arson Attacks in Sumatra

On the island of Sumatra, unidentified assailants burned
down four predominantly Batak churches in Kuantan Singingi regency, Riau, in
April and August 2011. So far, no one has been held to account for the
burning of the four churches.

On April 11, 2011 at around
2 p.m., five or six men entered the Santo Antonius church in Taluk Kuantan
town. They destroyed the gate, sprayed gasoline inside the church, burned the
building, and destroyed furniture and equipment. A witness told Human Rights
Watch, “It burned for about one hour. The fire brigade didn’t
come until it was too late.”[286]

The local regent, Sukarmis,
visited the church the next day, assigning a police company to help clean up
the debris. Just four days before, Sukarmis had won a local election against
an Islamist candidate partly because of the support of Christian voters from
rural areas in Kuantan Singingi.[287] Police arrested 21 young men for the April 11
arson attack but none were ever charged.[288]

The failure of the authorities
to immediately take action against those responsible for the attack may have
encouraged further violence against churches in the area. On July 31, 2011,
the Batak Karo Protestant Church (Gereja Batak Karo Protestan, GBKP) in
Logas, Tanah Darat district, about an hour’s drive from Taluk Kuantan,
was attacked by a mob.

The church is located
inside a remote palm oil plantation with around 50 Batak families living in
the community. Church elder Salmon Ketaren stated, “It was almost
midnight. Suddenly the mob arrived. Stones were thrown against the roof. I
went out and saw motorcycles outside.” One motorcyclist took out a
machete and threatened to kill Ketaren. He ran away. The mob burned down the
wooden church.[289]

Less than 24 hours later, a mob burned down the
Pentecostal Church in Indonesia (Gereja Pentakosta di Indonesia, GPDI) in
Pangean district, about three kilometers away from the GBKP church, according
to Lasni Simanjuntak, who lives next door. She said, “A Honda
motorcyclist hit the front door. They turned benches and partitions upside
down. I heard people shouting, ‘Allahu Akbar’ [God is
great].” She immediately told her husband and children to flee. From
their hiding place, they saw their home get burned to the ground.[290]

The next night, on August 2, a mob attacked the Methodist
Church in Indonesia (Gereja Methodist Indonesia, GMI) in Pangean district,
around 200 meters from the burned Pentecostal church. Farmer Dimer Siregar,
who witnessed the attack, said, “They collected benches inside the church
and burned them.”[291]

Police questioned church officials at the police station.
John Saprianto Purba of the Methodist church said he saw the police arrest
and then release one teenager with his Vixen Yamaha motorbike. Purba said he
asked the police why the youth was released, and according to him, the
officer replied:

We want to uphold the law. We’re doing it. We
arrested and questioned him. But if we’re to keep him here, this police
precinct will be burned to the ground.[292]

Judicial System
Failures

Indonesia’s criminal justice system has proven
ineffectual in prosecuting cases of violence against religious minorities.
Cases rarely reach the courts and, when they do, prosecutors and judges have
appeared prejudiced against individuals and groups from religious minorities,
while showing unjustifiable leniency towards Islamist militants implicated in
serious criminal offenses.

In the Cikeusik attack, which claimed the lives of three
Ahmadiyah men, prosecutors did not charge any of the defendants with murder or
manslaughter, but only with lesser crimes including assault causing death,
inciting public disorder, and maltreatment (less serious than assault),
participating in assault, and illegal possession of sharp weapons. Although
assault resulting in death carries a maximum penalty of 12 years’
imprisonment, at trial prosecutors recommended sentences of only seven months
or less, saying that the sentences should be reduced since the Ahmadiyah
members partly provoked the attack and filmed and distributed videos of the
attack. In the end, 12 perpetrators were convicted and received sentences
ranging from three to six months in prison.

Deden Sujana, the Ahmadiyah man later charged with provoking
the attack, was the only Ahmadiyah member asked to testify. He was berated by a
judge about his faith and his motivations in going to Cikeusik that day, a
scene videotaped and available on
YouTube.[293]
Responding to a question from the judges, prosecutors claimed they could not
find the addresses of other witnesses, although two of them later testified at
Sujana’s trial.

The judges allowed defense
lawyers to ask inappropriate and irrelevant questions of some witnesses−such as questions probing the religious faith of
Sujana−in an apparent effort to
intimidate them. Outside the courtroom, a lawyer for the defendants said that
Sujana must be "bullied till he shits" ("digencet hingga
mencret"), but suffered no rebuke from the court.[294]

By contrast, in the separate trial against Sujana for his
alleged role in provoking the attack, prosecutors were much more aggressive.
They called for Sujana to be sentenced to at least six years in prison, on
charges of provocation, disobeying police orders, and maltreatment. In the
end, Sujana was sentenced to six months in prison, the same as the maximum
sentence imposed on the 12 perpetrators of the deadly attack.[295]

An important explanation for the prosecution’s bias in
criminal cases involving religious minorities is the strong presence of Bakor
Pakem in public prosecutors’ offices. This presence maintains a channel
between the prosecution office and religious establishments like the Indonesian
Ulama Council.

For instance, when three defendants were on trial in April
2011 for the burning of an Ahmadiyah mosque, schools, and houses in Cisalada,
Bogor, a cleric from the Bogor office of the Indonesian Ulama Council told
Bogor prosecutors that if the three young men were not acquitted,
“… there will be problems later.”[296]
Judges found them guilty, but only sentenced them to between four and six
months, and they were immediately released due to time already served in
detention.[297]

In some instances, local authorities offered compensation to
churches that have been destroyed in lieu of serious investigations and
prosecutions. In Kuantan Singingi, Riau, according to church elders, district
government officials offered financial assistance to the three burned churches.
District officials reportedly offered 5 million rupiah (US$500) to each church
if they signed a “peace agreement” (perjanjian damai),
promising that the three churches would not file a lawsuit against the
government or the alleged perpetrators. Church elders refused to sign. The
government and police did not try to investigate or prosecute the arsonists
responsible for the destruction of the four churches.[298]

In the 2011 Baha’i case in Sukadana, Islamist
militants from Forum Umat Islam loudly and visibly pressured the court. Defense
lawyer Yulius Setiarto believes this influenced the verdict and wrote in his
appeal to the Supreme Court, “It can be seen from their flags, banners,
and headbands. Some of the mob sat on the courtroom benches, creating noisy
remarks during the trial sessions.”[299]
Setiarto said the protesters had also heckled the defense lawyers, making
comments suggesting the violence was justified by Islam, without a response
from the court: “They said that our blood is halal.”[300]

Video recordings of the trial, outside the courtroom, show
the protesters with banners reading “Baha’i infidel” and
“Prosecutors don’t be afraid, we’re all behind you.”[301]
The judges took less than a day to reach a guilty verdict, when judges in
Indonesia usually take two weeks to write the verdict.

Another example was the sentence that the Sampang court had
made on a Sunni villager who was involved in the deadly attack of the Shia
hamlet. It only sentenced Saripin, a Nangkernang villager, eight months
imprisonment.[302] It was
a blatant contrast to Shia cleric Tajul Muluk, whose house was burned, whose
family was forced to live in exile, whose friend was killed in the attack, and
Muluk was sentenced for blasphemy to four years imprisonment.

Recent Attacks on
Freedom of Expression

The Indonesian government’s failure to rein-in
violence by Islamist militants has had a knock-on negative impact on free
expression. The police and other authorities who are unwilling to protect
religious minorities from attack show the same reluctance to protect artists,
writers, and media companies who raise the ire of Muslim groups.

On May 4, 2012, the FPI
protested outside the Salihara Theater in Jakarta while Canadian writer Irshad
Manji was presenting her new book: Allah, Liberty and Love. The
protesters surrounded the theater compound and broke down its access gate.[303] The local police chief, Adry Desas Puryanto,
responded by unexpectedly entering the theater and informing the audience that
he was stopping the book talk. Puryanto justified the interruption of
Manji’s talk on the basis that the theater did not have a permit to
invite “a foreigner” to talk there. That was a blatant pretext, as
there is no provision in Indonesian law requiring foreigners who enter the
country legally to obtain a permit before engaging in public speaking. He also
cited residents’ opposition to Manji on the basis of her reputation as a
gay rights activist.[304]

Gadjah Mada University in Yogyakarta later cancelled another
scheduled public appearance by Manji, five days after the Jakarta attack, at
the campus due to security concerns after “hundreds of Muslims”
from various organizations complained to the university president that Manji
should be prohibited access to the school.[305]

On May 10, 2012, a group of
dozens of men wearing clothing which identified them as members of the
extremist Indonesian Mujahedeen Council (Majelis Mujahidin Indonesia, MMI)
disrupted a talk by Manji at a Yogyakarta publishing company. The MMI members
smashed windows and kicked and punched audience members. One of the attackers
reportedly struck Manji’s colleague, Emily Rees, with an iron bar, and
dislocating one of her vertebrae.[306]

The same week that Islamist groups attacked Manji’s
book tour, others rallied against the planned June 3, 2012 concert of American
pop star Lady Gaga in Jakarta at a sold-out 52,000-seat stadium in Jakarta.A coalition of Islamist groups opposed the
concert on the basis that the singer’s “sexy clothes and dance
moves would corrupt the youth.”[307] The
FPI threatened to dispatch 30,000 of its members to prevent the concert from
occurring.[308]
Minister of Religious Affairs Suryadharma Ali supported the Islamist
group’s opposition to the concert, stating that Lady Gaga “indulges
in pornography by wearing revealing costumes” and that she would have a
“negative influence” on young Indonesians:

Her lyrics indicate that she is also an anti-religious
person. During her concerts, Lady Gaga looks like a devil worshipper.[309]

Although the Jakarta police denied that it had capitulated
to the demands of the Islamist groups, the concert organizers cancelled the
event after police refused to issue a permit for the event on the basis that it
“may potentially trigger conflicts.”[310]

V. Role of the International Community

Foreign governments continue
to praise Indonesia for its religious tolerance and, while some have raised
concerns about attacks on religious minority communities, they have done too
little to encourage Indonesian authorities to take decisive action to curb such
violence, prosecute perpetrators, or end discrimination by national and local
authorities. Donors should also take the necessary measures to ensure that the
aid projects, programs, and technical assistance they fund in Indonesia,
directly or through multilateral development banks, do not promote or
facilitate discrimination or violence on the basis of religion.

On May 23, 2012, during the Universal Periodic Review of
Indonesia at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, more than 20 countries,
including members of the European Union as well as Australia, Brazil, Canada,
Japan, Mexico, South Korea, and the United States, raised concerns and issued
recommendations to address rising religious intolerance in Indonesia.

Those recommendations
included appeals to Indonesia to tackle violence, harassment, and
discrimination against minority faiths, ensure that perpetrators of violence
against religious minorities are brought to justice, and accept a request by
the UN special rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief to visit Indonesia.
Some countries urged Indonesia to review laws and policies that restrict
freedom of religion, including the 1965 blasphemy law, the decrees on
constructing houses of worship and the 2008 anti-Ahmadiyah decree, and to
ensure that all such laws and decrees comply with international standards.[311]

Indonesia Foreign Minister
Marty Natalegawa responded to the concerns by saying that freedom of religion
was guaranteed in Indonesia’s constitution. He said there was a
“misperception” that Indonesia recognizes “only six official
religions: Islam, Catholicism, Protestantism, Hinduism, Buddhism and Khong Hu
Chu [Confucianism],” which comes from an “incomplete reading”
of the 1965 blasphemy law. Natalegawa said that the law does not provide
official recognition to any religion and that there were many religions in
Indonesia.[312]

The previous year, in May 2011, UN High Commissioner for
Human Rights Navanethem Pillay had proposed a visit by the UN special
rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief to visit Indonesia to investigate
the “large number of letters and reports” she received “in
recent months concerning violence against members of religious minorities in
Indonesia.” She said she was “particularly disturbed by the
widespread violence and discrimination reported against the [Ahmadiyah]
community, which has included the state-sanctioned closing of Ahmadi mosques,
the burning of homes and places of worship, and even physical violence and
murder.”[313]

The European Parliament in July 2011 also urged the
Indonesian government to invite the UN special rapporteur on freedom of
religion and belief to visit Indonesia.[314] So far
the Indonesia government has not responded to this request.

The United States, European Union, Australia, and Other Trade
Partners and
Donors

A number of world leaders in recent years have praised
Indonesia for its “religious tolerance” and as a
“model” Muslim democracy. While this may have been meant to
encourage the Indonesian government to work harder to promote religious
tolerance, such statements only seem to have generated a sense among Indonesia’s
leaders that no significant changes in law, policy, or practice are needed:

In December 2010, Australian Foreign
Minister Kevin Rudd, when speaking in Bali, said Indonesia shows the world that
Islam and democracy walk in harmony.[315]

In August 2011, Germany’s Christian
Democratic Union chairman, Volker Kauder, when visiting Jakarta, spoke about
his admiration for Indonesia, which “upholds religious tolerance and
harmony.”[316]

In November 2010, US President Barack Obama,
when visiting Jakarta, praised “the spirit of religious tolerance that is
enshrined in Indonesia’s Constitution, and that remains one of this
country’s defining and inspiring characteristics.”[317]

In February 2011, the United States
government expressed its concern about mob violence in Indonesia directed at
members of the Ahmadiyah community, while at the same time stating that the
Indonesian government’s response underlines its commitment to the rule of
law and the protection of minority communities.[318]

In April 2012, British Prime Minister David
Cameron, when speaking at a Jakarta’s Al Azhar University, said,
“What Indonesia shows is that in the world’s largest
Muslim-majority country, it is possible to reject this extremist threat and
prove that democracy and Islam can flourish alongside each other.”
Cameron added, “This reflects the
vital importance in standing up against the despicable violence and persecution
of minorities–whether Christians, Ahmadis or others.”[319]

The United States is Indonesia’s most influential
ally. Together with Australia and Japan, it is one of Indonesia’s three
largest bilateral donors.[320] The
Obama administration has raised concerns about violence against religious
minorities with the Indonesian government, but has not sufficiently emphasized
the need to repeal regulations that facilitate discrimination and violence, or
adequately conveyed to Indonesian officials that lack of progress will
increasingly impact the bilateral relationship.

The US Commission on
International Religious Freedom, a bipartisan US government commission,
currently lists Indonesia on its Watch List. It means that Indonesia requires
“close monitoring” due to the nature and extent of religious
freedom violations that the Indonesian government has engaged in or tolerated.[321]

In July 2011, the European
Parliament issued a resolution condemning attacks on Christian and Ahmadiyah
properties in Indonesia. It expressed “grave concern at the incidents of
violence against religious minorities, particularly Ahmadi Muslims, Christians,
Baha’is and Buddhists” and noted that “violations of
religious freedom undermine the human rights guaranteed in the Indonesian
constitution, including the prohibition of discrimination and freedom of
expression, opinion and peaceful assembly.” The European Parliament
called on the Indonesian government “to guarantee that the rule of law is
implemented and upheld and that the perpetrators of religious violence and
hatred are brought to justice.” The European Parliament also called on
“Indonesian authorities to investigate allegations of human rights
violations by members of the security forces and to prosecute those found
responsible, including persons with command responsibility.”[322]

Foreign embassies in Jakarta
have been well aware of the growing religious intolerance in Indonesia and have
organized seminars and conferences on religious issues. In January 2010, the US
Embassy and the Indonesian government co-hosted the Indonesia-US Interfaith
Dialogue in Jakarta under the title "Building Collaborative Communities:
Enhancing Cooperation among People of Different Faiths."[323]

In October 2011, the European Union, in partnership with the
Nahdlatul Ulama, convened a two-day conference on “Human Rights and Faith
in Focus” in Jakarta.[324]

In March 2012, the Iranian Embassy, which represents the
largest Shia country in the world, held a conference entitled “The Role
and Contribution of Iranian Nation to Islamic Civilization” at the State
Islamic University Syarif Hidayatullah in Jakarta. In his opening address,
Indonesia’s Deputy Minister of Religious Affairs Nazaruddin Umar told
participants that violence against the Shia minority in Indonesia would be
solved with “inter-faith dialogue.” Later that month the Canadian
Embassy hosted a Jakarta conference, “Religion in Public Spaces in
Contemporary South East Asia,” again with the partnership of the State
Islamic University Syarif Hidayatullah, in Jakarta.[325]

While conferences and seminars can have limited utility as
forums to exchange views on certain issues, they are no replacement for public
statements and focused diplomatic efforts seeking changes to discriminatory
laws, sectarian institutions, and biased law enforcement that infringe on the
rights of religious minorities. A month after the conference on the contribution
of the “Iranian nation” to Islamic civilization, Indonesian police
arrested a Shia imam in Madura, charged him with blasphemy, and expelled
several clerics from their village. The imam, Tajul Muluk, was later found
guilty and sentenced to two years’ imprisonment. Sunni militants soon
attacked his hamlet, killing one of his colleagues and kicking out hundreds of
his members.

VI. Recommendations

To the Government of Indonesia

To the President

President Susilo Bambang
Yudhoyono has been inconsistent at best in defending the right to religious
freedom. The absence of leadership has emboldened groups willing to use
violence against religious minorities and the local and national officials who
cater to them. Indonesia’s constitution explicitly guarantees freedom of
religion and decentralization laws leave authority over religious freedom with
the central government. What is most needed is the political will to wield that
authority. Despite occasional positive rhetoric, however, President Yudhoyono
has responded weakly to growing intolerance and acts of violence against
religious minorities, has not insisted firmly that national laws be enforced,
and has often been unwilling to use his powers as president to see that the
laws be enforced.

The president has most often deferred to others when pressed
to address attacks on religious minorities. Too often, he has turned a blind
eye to hardline groups that engage in such attacks and has said little publicly
when other government leaders, notably the minister of religion, make
discriminatory statements that fuel such antagonism. Statements of support and
appearances by officials at events sponsored by the Islamic Defenders Front
(Front Pembela Islam, FPI), which has engaged in repeated acts of violent
vigilantism, is a case in point. The result is that religious conflicts and
targeting of minority religious groups have worsened over time. And several
local officials, whether reflecting their own views or those of important
electoral constituencies, have refused to enforce rulings of Indonesia’s
highest courts.

More decisive leadership is urgently needed. Human Rights
Watch supports the call for President Yudhoyono to work with parliament to
devise and implement a national strategy on religious tolerance and religious
freedom.[326]
The effort should be led by an independent national taskforce composed of
experts and politically influential individuals committed to religious freedom
and not beholden to the existing Ministry of Religious Affairs hierarchy. The
task force should be given a strong mandate and produce a concrete plan of
action. Key elements of such a plan of action should include:

Zero tolerance for attacks on
religious minorities. Every attack on religious minority communities
should be prosecuted.

Active measures against local
officials who fail to respect court judgments guaranteeing religious
freedom, including construction of houses of worship. The task force and
President Yudhoyono should work to ensure that obstruction of justice is made
grounds for suspending local officials from public office when new local
government laws are being drafted, and should press parliament to pass
specific contempt of court legislation.

Review of existing laws,
regulations, and decrees on religion to identify provisions at odds with
freedom of religion and freedom of conscience, followed by a timetable for
revision or repeal of offending provisions.

National outreach on basic principles of religious freedom
and religious tolerance, including education programs disseminated through
government media and schools, and stronger policies and responses to
incitement to violence targeting religious minorities, including greater
clarity on when freedom of expression crosses the line into incitement to
criminal violence.

Even before a taskforce is convened and a national strategy
on religious freedom and religious tolerance is adopted, President Yudhoyono
should:

Seek to amend or revoke
regulations that discriminate against religious minorities or exacerbate
intolerance in Indonesia, including the 1965 blasphemy law, the
ministerial decrees on building houses of worship, and the 2008
anti-Ahmadiyah decree.

Take immediate disciplinary
action against all government officials, including the minister of
religious affairs, who make statements or engage in actions that promote
religious discrimination.

Seek criminal prosecution of government officials who
incite violence against religious or other minorities.

Use existing presidential
powers, including over allocation of central government funding to local
governments, to sanction local officials who defy the courts.[327]

Review and restructure the
functions of the Ministry of Religious Affairs to ensure better
representation of the hundreds of religions and beliefs in Indonesia and
the promotion of meaningful inter-faith dialogue and inter-religious
education. The latter should begin with frank acknowledgment of divisive
issues and work toward their resolution.

Direct all national and local
officials to abide by court rulings and to allow the construction of
churches and other houses of worship that have met the administrative
criteria under current law.

Take immediate steps to sanction government officials who
refuse to permit the construction of houses of worships, including GKI
Yasmin and HKBP Filadelfia churches.

To the House of Representatives

Remove the Religious Harmony
Bill from the list of bills to be deliberated. Rather than providing
safeguards for religious freedom, the bill would provide a stronger legal
basis for ministerial decrees that harm rights of religious minorities.

Amend or revoke laws that discriminate against religious
minorities or exacerbate intolerance in Indonesia, including the 1965
blasphemy law.

To the National Police

Conduct prompt, thorough, and
impartial investigations to discipline and, where appropriate, prosecute
police officers, regardless of rank, implicated in violence against
religious minorities or who aid and abet militant groups in unlawful acts.

Ensure that police units in areas where extremists target
religious minorities with threats or actual physical violence have an
adequate number of trained equipped personnel to prevent possible violence
and to intervene in a timely manner when violence occurs to reduce deaths
and casualties.

Prohibit any official
endorsements of groups linked to the advocacy and use of violence against
religious minorities, and prohibit joint police action with such groups in
“anti-vice” campaigns and related initiatives.

Adopt a “zero
tolerance” approach to acts of vandalism and other crimes against
religious structures and the people who worship in them.

Provide prompt and adequate
reparations to victims of violence in which security forces are direct
participants, aid and abet abuses by militant groups, or fail to take
available measures to prevent or end the violence.

Issue a directive to police to
act fully impartially in religious disputes, including by not signing
documents on religion that would call their impartiality into question or
entail coercive action against religious minorities.

Reprimand police officers who
sign petitions that bring their impartiality to conduct police work into
question.

Expand on initiatives such as
the cooperation between the National Police and Kontras in developing a
police manual on dealing with violence against religious groups.

Conduct trainings for officers on the UN Code of Conduct
for Law Enforcement Officials, the UN Basic Principles on the Use of Force
and Firearms, and Indonesia’s Police Regulation on the Use of Force
(No. 01/2009) and stipulate strict penalties for officers who violate or
ignore these standards.[328]

To the Ministry of Religious Affairs

Commission an independent
study to examine possible restructuring of the ministry so that it better
represents the hundreds of religions and beliefs practiced in Indonesia,
instead of limiting itself to the six religions officially protected under
the 1965 blasphemy law.

Send a directive to all governors, mayors, and regents to
ensure that local FKUB offices act independently and impartially. Ensure
that any members of FKUB found to be using their position to discriminate
against minority religious groups are removed from their positions.

To the Ministry of Home Affairs

Adopt a “zero tolerance”
approach to civil servants who passively or actively practice, tolerate,
or encourage acts of discrimination, threats, or physical violence against
religious minorities.

Create an office to receive
public complaints of discrimination by civil servants against individuals
from minority religions and set up an internal mechanism so that civil
servants can report acts of discrimination by other civil servants. Create
a transparent mechanism to investigate those complaints and reports, and
ensure that they are addressed and appropriate action is taken in a timely
manner.

Ensure that the Bekasi regent and Bogor mayor implement
the Supreme Court verdicts on HKBP Filadelfia and GKI Yasmin.

To the United States, European Union Member States,
Australia, Japan, and other Concerned Governments

Publicly and privately press
the Indonesian government to respect the right to religious freedom and
other basic human rights, including by amending or repealing
discriminatory laws and policies, and investigating and prosecuting
threats, harassment, and attacks on religious minorities.

Urge the Indonesian government
to invite the UN Special Rapporteur for freedom of religion or belief to
visit.

Use Jakarta-based diplomats to
monitor incidents of discrimination or violence against religious
minorities as well as trials affecting the right to freedom of religion,
especially in Java and Sumatra.

Vet all programs that provide
training to government officials to ensure that participants have not been
implicated or complicit in religion-based violence or other serious human
rights abuses.

Take necessary measures to ensure that programs in
Indonesia funded directly or through the Asian Development Bank or other
multilateral development banks, including support for madrasahs, do
not promote or facilitate discrimination or violence on the basis of
religion.

Layout and production assistance was provided by Julia
Bleckner and Storm Tiv, Asia associates, and Kathy Mills, publications
specialist. Special thanks to all those individuals and organizations who aided
in our research and who generously shared their time, energy, and experiences
with Human Rights Watch. Human Rights Watch would like to particularly express
appreciation to those victims of religious intolerance and related intolerance
in Indonesia who shared with us the accounts of the abuses they suffered.

[4] The
debate about the role of Islam in Indonesia began during the Dutch colonial
rule. In the 1920s, Sukarno, a young fighter for independence, argued for the
separation of religion, particularly Islam, and the state. He wrote that the
fight against Dutch colonialism required the support of the country’s
ethnic minorities. Some Muslim thinkers questioned whether Islamic teachings
could be confined to personal and individual matters and called for the
establishment of an Islamic republic.

[5]
In March 1942, Japan invaded the Dutch Indies. The Japanese occupation
government considered many Muslim groups as allies due to their anti-Dutch
Indonesian nationalism and established an office on Islamic affairs, the
Shumubu. They also set up the Consultative Council of Indonesian Muslims
(Majelis Syuro Muslim Indonesia, Masyumi) as the umbrella organization of all
Muslim groups in Indonesia. In April 1945, the Japanese occupation government
founded the Investigation Committee for Independence Preparation Efforts (Badan
Penyelidik Usaha Persiapan Kemerdekaan, BPUPKI) to write Indonesia’s
constitution. BPUPKI included the main proponents of Indonesian independence
and was a center of debate about the role of Islam in Indonesia.

[7]
Some Muslim leaders and scholars advocated inclusion of Sharia in the
constitution. Others argued for giving priority to the monotheism principle,
“Belief in one God,” as the first Pancasila principle rather than
as last. See D. Rini Yunarti, BPUPKI, PPKI, Proklamasi Kemerdekaan RI (Jakarta:
Penerbit Buku Kompas, 2003).

[12] Adnan
Buyung Nasution, who wrote his thesis on the 1956-1959 Constitutional Assembly
debates, argued that Sukarno was too hasty in disbanding the assembly. Having
interviewed many sources including Muhammad Natsir, Nasution wrote that Natsir
had concluded that the debate was almost over. Nasution described the debates
as productive and intelligent. The draft constitution provided more human
rights protections than did the 1945 Constitution. See Adnan Buyung Nasution, The
Aspiration for Constitutional Government in Indonesia: A Socio-Legal Study of
the Indonesian Konstituante, 1956-1959 (Jakarta: Pustaka Sinar Harapan,
1992).

[15] Oei
Tjoe Tat, a Sukarno cabinet minister who led a fact finding mission in 1966,
estimated 78,000 people were killed in 1965-1966. But General Sarwo Edhie
Wibowo, who led the military operation against the communists, told a
parliamentarian delegate in 1989 on his death bed that around three million
people were killed. See Oei Tjoe Tat et al., Memoar Oei Tjoe Tat: Pembantu
Presiden Soekarno (Jakarta: Hasta Mitra, 1995); Tempo, Sarwo Edhie dan
Misteri 1965 (Jakarta: Kepustakaan Populer Gramedia, 2012).

[16] In
Jakarta, a mob attacked and burned a newly built church on April 28, 1969. In
Meulaboh in 1967, national politicians were involved in a parliamentary debate
over a plan of the Methodist church to build a house of worship. In Makassar,
on October 1, 1967, Muslim students organized by the Muslims’ Student
Association (Himpunan Mahasiswa Islam, HMI) attacked nine Protestant churches,
four Catholic churches, one nun dormitory, one academy of theology, one
Catholic student association office and two Catholic schools. The Makassar HMI
was led at the time by chairman Jusuf Kalla who would become Indonesia’s
vice president in 2004. See Mujiburrahman, Feeling Threatened: Muslim-Christian
Relations in Indonesia's New Order (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press,
2006) pp. 29-40. See also, Melissa Crouch, “Implementing the Regulation
on Places of Worship in Indonesia: New Problems, Local Politics and Court
Action,” Asian Studies Review, vol.34, iss.4 (2010), pp. 403-19.

[22] Human
Rights Watch interview with Jeirry Sumampauw, an official of the Communion of
Churches (PGI) in Indonesia, in charge of compiling annual reports about
various abuses against Christians, Jakarta, September 7, 2011. See also the PGI
website www.pgi.or.id
http://st291735.sitekno.com/page/36867/tahun-2005.html (accessed June 25,
2012).

[28]
Robin Bush, “A Snapshot of Muhammadiyah: social change and shifting
markers of identity and values,” a paper presented at the International
Conference on Muhammadiyah (Malang, November 29-December 2, 2012).

[35] Wikileaks,
“Indonesian Biographical and Political Gossip,” cable from the US
Embassy on May 9, 2006,
http://www.cablegatesearch.net/cable.php?id=06JAKARTA5851&q=agung%20fpi%20indonesia%20islam%20laksono%20police%20rizieq%20shihab
(accessed May 3, 2012).

[42] United
Nations, “The List established and maintained by the 1267 Committee with
respect to individuals, groups, undertakings and other entities associated with
Al-Qaida,” updated on June 6, 2012,
http://www.un.org/sc/committees/1267/pdf/AQList.pdf (accessed June 20, 2012).

[51] In
1964, Parisada Hindu Dharma Bali (Bali Hindu Dharma Community), a large Hindu
organization on Bali Island, changed its name to Parisada Hindu Dharma
Indonesia (Indonesia Hindu Dharma Community), reflecting subsequent efforts to
define Hinduism as a national, rather than just a Balinese, concern. See
Ministry of Religious Affairs, “Appendix 1: Population in Indonesia by
Religion,” 2010.

[54] A
Mongol force of 20,000 soldiers sent to Java in 1293 to punish King Kertanegara
for his insolence had profound, if unintended, consequences.
Kertanegara’s son-in-law, Wijaya, was able to manipulate the Chinese
troops to his own advantage. Thousands of Chinese soldiers reportedly died in
Java, but many must have been captured by the Javanese or stayed behind
voluntarily. This episode not only marked the rise of the new dynasty of
Majapahit, but also brought a major injection of Chinese technology to Java. It
was considered to be the first migration of Chinese on Java Island. See Lynn
Pan, The Encyclopedia of the Chinese Overseas (Singapore: Chinese Heritage
Centre, 2006) p. 50.

[55]
The first large Chinese business in the Dutch Indies was Oei Tiong Ham Concern,
established in Semarang, Java Island, in 1863. In 1890, young Oei Tiong Ham
took over the firm, building it into one of the largest firms in Southeast
Asia. It’s involved in trade of rubber,
kapok, gambir, tapioca and coffee. He died in 1924 in Singapore. See Kunio
Yoshihara, Oei Tiong,Ham
Concern: the first business empire of Southeast Asia (Kyoto University:
Center for Southeast Asian Studies, 1989).

[61]MUI fatwa No. 11/Munas VII/MUI/15/2005 signed July 29,
2005 by fatwa commission members Ma’ruf Amin (chairman) and Hasanudin
(secretary) as well as by plenary conference members Umar Shihab (chairman) and
Din Syamsuddin (secretary).

[64]“Indonesia: ‘Restrictive bill threatens
freedoms of association, expression and religion,’ warn UN rights
experts,” Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, February 14,
2013, http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=12989&LangID=E (accessed February 14, 2013). “The Bill on Mass
Organizations imposes the requirement on the founding of associations not to be
in contradiction with Pancasila - the official State philosophy in Indonesia
that consecrates the belief ‘in the One and Only God’. It also
stipulates that organizations have the duty to maintain religious
values.”

[69] See
Musdah Mulia, “The Problem of Implementation of the Rights of Religious
Freedom In Indonesia,” paper submitted to the EU-Indonesia Conference,
“Human Rights and Faith in Focus,” held by European Union and
Nahdlatul Ulama in Jakarta, October 24-25, 2011. Musdah Mulia is the director
of the Indonesian Conference on Religion and Peace.

[70]
See Suryadharma Ali, Paper presented at the Work Meeting Minister of Religious
Affairs with Commission VIII House of Representatives, Jakarta, February 9,
2011.

[87] Some
Muslims have published extensively about fears of
“Christianization” in Indonesia. For instance, a video called
“Save Maryam,”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6E9NcbVa4FU&fb_source=message, uploaded in
July 2012, contends that “two million Muslims leave Islam every
year” in Indonesia to become Christians, though no basis is provided for
this claim.

[88] Internally,
Suharto’s Education and Culture Minister Daoed Joesoef, himself a devout
Muslim, protested the 1969 decree. In his 2006 memoir Joesoef wrote of his
conversation with Suharto about the decree. He said he told Suharto that the
decree is not going to create “religious harmony.” He argued it
would be made “a legal platform for sectarian extremists” to
repress minorities in Indonesia and would create inequality among Indonesian
citizens. Joesoef asked Suharto to cancel the decree. Suharto, however, did not
respond to Joesoef’s suggestion. In his memoir, Joesoef regretted that
Christian bureaucrats and politicians did not speak up against the decree. See
Daoed Joesoef, Dia Dan Aku: Memoar Pencari Kebenaran (Jakarta: Kompas, 2006),
pp. 743-47.

[105] “MUI
fatwa No. 11/Munas VII/MUI/15/2005” signed on July 29, 2005 by fatwa
commission members Ma’ruf Amin (chairman) and Hasanudin (secretary) as
well as by plenary conference members Umar Shihab (chairman) and Din Syamsuddin
(secretary).

[112]
Human Rights Working Group et. al., “List of Regulation that Prohibit
Ahmadiyya Congregation Activity until 2011,” in a report submitted to the
UN Human Rights Council for the Universal Periodic Review of Indonesia in
Geneva on May 23, 2012. The report was jointly written by Human Rights Working
Group, Jakarta Legal Aid Institute, the Institute for Policy Research and Advocacy,
Setara Institute, Indonesia Legal Resource Center, Wahid Institute, and the
Center for Marginalized Communities Studies.

[117] Ministry
of Religious Affairs, The Policy of the Government on the Issue of Ahmadiyaa
in Indonesia, (Jakarta: 2011.) The 44-page booklet contains the 2008 decree
and a joint circular on the implementation of the decree. Prof. Atho Mudzhar,
the head of the Office of Research, Development and Training at the Ministry of
Religious Affairs, wrote the preface.

[120]
Rumadi Ahmad of the Wahid Institute said the focus on “religious
harmony” is a threat to religious minorities. “It would be better
if the government were to propose a bill on religious freedom,” (A
statement at in a Wahid Institute press conference, in Jakarta, December 29,
2011). Nathan Setiabudi, who chaired the Communion of Churches in Indonesia in
2000-2005, said that by emphasizing “religious harmony” the bill
would provide a pretext for law enforcement agencies to pressure religious
minorities to stop religious practices that might infuriate the majority (Human
Rights Watch interview with Nathan Setiabudi, Jakarta, June 22, 2012).

[121]
In 1978, Deliar Noer, a Muslim scholar, argued that Christians do not feel any
need for such a ministry because they have their own organizations, e.g., the
Communion of Churches in Indonesia and the Bishops' Conference of Indonesia
(Konferensi Waligereja Indonesia, KWI). “Protestants and Catholics in Indonesia
have received substantial support from abroad and foreign missions also have
direct access to Indonesian territories. … Only the Muslims felt the need
for such a ministry,” he wrote. See Deliar Noer, Administration of Islam
in Indonesia (Jakarta: Equinox, 2010) p. 23.

[122] During
President Suharto’s rule, the Ministry of Religious Affairs was at times
headed by respected scholars including Mukti Ali (1973-1978), Munawir Sjadzali
(1988-1993), and Quraish Shihab (1998). They did not produce discriminatory
regulations and focused on conducting research on religious life in Indonesia.
Many of these scholars have left the ministry over the last decade. In 2002,
Komaruddin Hidayat of the Jakarta Islamic University wrote that the Ministry of
Religious Affairs should be changed from a “sectarian institution,”
which favors Muslims, to an institution that treats all faiths equally. Djohan
Effendi, who used to head the research division at the ministry, said.
“The ministry has become a state within a state. It pretends to be able
to deal with many things but it has miserably failed.” See Luthfi
Assyaukanie, Ideologi Islam Dan Utopia: Tiga Model Negara Demokrasi Di
Indonesia (Jakarta: Freedom Institute, 2011).

[139]
Human Rights Watch interview with Ibrahim Khalil, a prosecutor of Alexander An,
Sijunjung, April 9, 2012. Khalil is also the chief intelligence of the
Dharmasraya prosecutor office in Pulau Punjung, the capital of Dharmasraya
regency. He also heads the Bakor Pakem office.

[141]
MUI has a sprawling network that makes it difficult to know its actual
financial situation. It differs from one province to another, and from one
regency to another. In an interview, Abdussomad Bukhori, the chairman of East
Java MUI, said that MUI leaders only receive an “honorarium” and
they expect no pay. See Hidayatullah, “Jadi Ketum MUI Karena Panggilan
Nurani,” April 21, 2011 http://hidayatullah.com/read/16539/21/04/2011/jadi-ketum-mui-karena-panggilan-nurani.html
(accessed June 22, 2012). Syibli E. Sarjaya, the secretary of the Banten MUI,
said that without government funding it might not operate properly. See
Okezone, “KH Syibli: Tanpa Hibah, MUI Berjalan Terseok-seok,”
September 22, 2011, http://news.okezone.com/read/2011/09/22/337/505983/kh-syibli-tanpa-hibah-mui-berjalan-terseok-seok
(accessed June 23, 2012). In Siak regency, Riau province, the government helps
each district with IDR 5 million (around US$600) to help pay preachers during
the Ramadan fasting month. See Hallo Riau, “Bantuan MUI, Setiap Kecamatan
Rp5 Juta,” July 26, 2011, http://www.halloriau.com/read-otonomi-12833-2011-07-26-bantuan-mui-setiap-kecamatan-rp5-juta-.html
(accessed June 23, 2012).

[142] There
are four cabinet members on the MUI board: Minister of Religious Affairs
Suryadharma Ali (also the chairman of the United Development Party);
Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs Hatta Rajasa (also the chairman of
the National Mandate Party and an in-law to President Susilo Bambang
Yudhoyono); Minister for National Education Muhammad Nuh; and Minister for
Social Affairs Salim Segaf al-Jufri. Indonesia’s best-selling novelist
Andrea Hirata also sits on the MUI’s Islamic art and culture commission
along with movie star Yenny Rahman, comedian Cici Tegal, and model Ratih
Sanggarwati. See MUI, “Susunan Pengurus MUI Pusat,” website. May 8,
2009, http://www.mui.or.id/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=52&Itemid=54
(accessed June 23, 2012).

[150] MUI
fatwa No. 11/Munas VII/MUI/15/2005 signed on July 29, 2005 by MUI’s fatwa
commission members Ma’ruf Amin (chairman) and Hasanudin (secretary) as
well as by plenary conference members Umar Shihab (chairman) and Din Syamsuddin
(secretary).

[155] They
included: Yusman Roy, a Muslim preacher reciting a Muslim prayer in Indonesian
Malay; Lia Eden, M. Abdul Rachman, and Wahyu Andito Putro Wibisono, three
leaders of a spiritual group named the “Eden Community” in Jakarta,
who declared that Lia Eden had received revelations from the Angel Gabriel;
Andreas Guntur, the leader of the spiritual group Amanat Keagungan Ilahi, for
drawing upon certain verses of the Quran but not abiding to other conventional
Islamic teachings; Dedi Priadi and Gerry Lufthy Yudistira, father and son, for
joining the Al-Qiyadah sufi sect in Padang court, West Sumatra; and Tajul
Muluk, a Shia cleric in Sampang, Madura island.

[161]
During the search period, August 2011 until December 2012, Human Rights Watch
made calls to members of 10 FKUB offices in North Sumatra, Riau, West Java,
Jakarta, Central Java, and West Nusa Tenggara. None of them have either
Ahmadiyah or Shia members.

[196]
On June 7-13, 2012, a delegation of Singkil churches visited Jakarta. They also
met Human Rights Watch and presented a 50-page document entitled “The
Closure of 20 Houses of Worship in Aceh Singkil Regency.” The Singkil
government sealed these houses of worship on May 1, May 3 and May 8, 2012. The
oldest church, GKPPD Kuta Kerangan, was built in 1932 during Dutch colonial
rule. Some were built during the Japanese occupation in 1942-45. The newest
one, the Indonesian Evangelical Mission Church (Gereja Misi Injili Indonesia,
GMII), was built in 2003.

[202]
In 1976, a Shia cleric, Husein al-Habsyi, established the Islam Pesantren
Foundation (Yayasan Pesantren Islam, YAPI) . Its Al-Ma’hadul Islami high
school was considered to be a class-A school by the Islamic Education
Accreditation Office in East Java (Badan Akreditasi Provinsi Sekolah/Madrasah
Jawa Timur) http://www.ban-sm.or.id/provinsi/jawa-timur/akreditasi/view/190601
(accessed November 21, 2011)

[229]
Human Rights Watch interview with an eighth grader in a public junior high
school, Campaka sub-district, Sukadana, September 14, 2011.

[230] The
Ahmadi man from Manislor district in Kuningan regency was barred from
registering his marriage at the Manislor office of the Ministry of Religious
Affairs. Human Rights Watch interview with the Ahmadi man, Jakarta, September
16, 2012.

[234] In
June 1964, the Kuningan Bakor Pakem declared marriages of members of Agama Sunda
Djawa (Java Sundanese Religion), a major Sunda Wiwitan organization, to be
illegal. The Kuningan prosecutor’s office later detained nine believers,
which included Djatikusumah, a priest, and eight young grooms, who allegedly
were married using Sundanese ritual. Anticipating increased hostilities, their
leader and Djatikusumah’s father, Tedja Buana, decided to leave the
organization, joining the Catholic church and inviting the church to use their
Sunda house of worship. His move prompted 5,000 Sunda Wiwitan believers to
convert to Catholicism. “It’s an important decision. My grandfather
saved thousands of our members from being accused as atheists. We can’t
imagine what would happened if he didn’t do it,” said Dewi Kanti, referring
to massacres of the communists in 1965-1966. But in March 1981, Djatikusumah,
the eldest son of Tedja Buana, declared that he was leaving the Catholic church
and returning to his native faith. His move prompted 1,600 believers to
reconvert to Sunda Wiwitan. The Catholic cathedral was re-converted to a Sunda
Wiwitan house of worship. See Iman C.Sukmana, Menuju Gereja Yang Semakin
Pribumi: Analisis Konflik Internal Dalam Gereja Eks-Ads (Jakarta: Penerbit
Universitas Atma Jaya, 2011).

[236] The
Suharto regime officially discriminated against Confucianism between 1979 and
1998. But the discrimination had started much earlier with the banning of
Chinese characters, Chinese-language books, and Chinese-language schools. See
Leo Suryadinata, “Buddhism and Confucianism in Indonesia” in Tim
Lindsey and Helen Pausacker eds., Chinese Indonesians: Remembering,
Distorting, Forgetting (Singapore: ISEAS 2005).

[245] The
Rukun Tetangga, or Neighborhood Association, first set up during the Japanese
occupation during World War II, is the lowest level administrative body in
Indonesia. Each Rukun Tetangga has 10 to 20 families. Each Rukun Warga, or
Citizen Association, consists of around 5 to 10 Rukun Tetangga.

[249]
Police are working with Kontras, a human rights organization in Jakarta, to
develop a police manual on dealing with religious freedom violations. The
program is assisted by the UK government. Human Rights Watch met five
Indonesian National Police generals in Jakarta on November 9, 2011, and
discussed the initiative, among other topics.

[253] “Formal
Declaration” signed by Syahroni and Iwan Purwanto on June 2, 2011 with 15
witnesses, including nine Muslim leaders and six government officials. It was
also signed by Dwi Sulistyawan, the deputy police chief of East Lampung. The
six officials were Police Commissioner Medi Iswanda, Police Adjunct
Commissioner Julianto PA, Police Second Inspector M. Faisal, Police Adjunct
Commissioner Waryono, First Brigadier Joni Paamsyah, and Second Brigadier
Budiyono.

[254] Omben
police chief Moh. Sofini signed the petition as did his three subordinates:
Sudirman, Suncamin, and Sudirmanto. The “Surat Pernyataan” or
“Formal Declaration,” dated February 26, 2006, was signed by 40
clerics in Sampang and Pamekasan regencies as well as the four police officers,
dated February 26, 2006.

[265] The
shahadah is the basic creed of Islam that must be recited under oath: "I
testify there are no deities other than God alone and I testify that Mohammad
is the Messenger of God." Muslims must repeat the shahadah in prayer, and
non-Muslims wishing to convert to Islam are required to recite the creed.
Ahmadiyah also recite the shahadah.

[267] Human
Rights Watch interview with Ahmadiyah woman, 35, of Cikeusik village, Jakarta,
September 10, 2011. Sarimie is an Indonesian brand of instant noodles; the term
is used derogatorily for people who change their religion due to material
incentives, for instance, better schools, financial assistance, or food.

[276]
The “Surat Pernyataan” or “Formal Declaration,” dated
February 26, 2006, was signed by 40 clerics in Sampang and Pamekasan regencies
as well as four police officers of the Omben district police station. The 40
clerics all have titles “kyai haji,” which means that all of them
had gone to Mecca and Medina as pilgrims (“haji”) and all are
teachers at Islamic boarding schools (“kyai”).

[279]
It’s a view commonly aired by Sunni clerics in various documents issued
in 2006-2012. Minister of Religious Affairs Suryadharma Ali reiterated this
view when having a meeting with the parliament on September 5, 2012. Ali said,
“The best solution for what has been going on in there is dialogue. Many
things can happen after a dialogue. We had an experience where the Ahmadis
[...] converted to mainstream Islam after dialogue.” It was a reference
to Ahmadis who were pressured to become Sunnis. See “Shia conversion is
solution: Minister,” Jakarta Post, September 6, 2012, http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2012/09/06/shia-conversion-solution-minister.html
(accessed September 9, 2012).

[287]On April 14, 2011, the election commission announced its final tally:
Sukarmis won with 82,504 votes (54percent) and Mursini received 69,600 (45
percent). See Riau Terkini, “Pleno KPU Kuansing Tegaskan Kemenangan
Sukarmis,” April 14, 2011.

[288] The
St. Antonius church catechist, Petrus Sakur, who witnessed the attack, said he
believes the arson was in retaliation against the Batak association in Kuantan
Singingi for having openly supported Sukarmis. Human Rights Watch interview
with Petrus Sakur,Taluk Kuantan, October 21, 2011.

[312]
See: Human Rights Council, Universal Periodic Review on Indonesia,
“Report of the Working Group on the Universal Periodic Review:
Indonesia,” Geneva, July 5, 2012. Marty Natalegawa’s comment was
recorded on point 76 p.10.

[322] European
Parliament resolution on Indonesia including attacks on minorities, July 7,
2011, http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//TEXT+TA+P7-TA-2011-0341+0+DOC+XML+V0//EN&language=EN(
accessed May 8 2012).

[323] Religions
for Peace, a YouTube video of the January 25-27, 2010 conference at Hotel
Borobudur, Jakarta,

[327] For a description of powers currently available to the president,
see International Crisis Group, “Indonesia: Defying the State, Asia
Briefing no. 138,” August 30, 2012, p. 18.

[328]In
June 2009, Amnesty International published a number of recommendations on the
Indonesian National Police, a number of which are relevant to addressing
religion-based violence. See Amnesty International, “Unfinished Business:
Police Accountability In Indonesia,” June 24, 2009.

[4] The
debate about the role of Islam in Indonesia began during the Dutch colonial
rule. In the 1920s, Sukarno, a young fighter for independence, argued for the
separation of religion, particularly Islam, and the state. He wrote that the
fight against Dutch colonialism required the support of the country’s
ethnic minorities. Some Muslim thinkers questioned whether Islamic teachings
could be confined to personal and individual matters and called for the
establishment of an Islamic republic.

[5]
In March 1942, Japan invaded the Dutch Indies. The Japanese occupation
government considered many Muslim groups as allies due to their anti-Dutch
Indonesian nationalism and established an office on Islamic affairs, the
Shumubu. They also set up the Consultative Council of Indonesian Muslims
(Majelis Syuro Muslim Indonesia, Masyumi) as the umbrella organization of all
Muslim groups in Indonesia. In April 1945, the Japanese occupation government
founded the Investigation Committee for Independence Preparation Efforts (Badan
Penyelidik Usaha Persiapan Kemerdekaan, BPUPKI) to write Indonesia’s
constitution. BPUPKI included the main proponents of Indonesian independence
and was a center of debate about the role of Islam in Indonesia.

[7]
Some Muslim leaders and scholars advocated inclusion of Sharia in the
constitution. Others argued for giving priority to the monotheism principle,
“Belief in one God,” as the first Pancasila principle rather than
as last. See D. Rini Yunarti, BPUPKI, PPKI, Proklamasi Kemerdekaan RI (Jakarta:
Penerbit Buku Kompas, 2003).

[12] Adnan
Buyung Nasution, who wrote his thesis on the 1956-1959 Constitutional Assembly
debates, argued that Sukarno was too hasty in disbanding the assembly. Having
interviewed many sources including Muhammad Natsir, Nasution wrote that Natsir
had concluded that the debate was almost over. Nasution described the debates
as productive and intelligent. The draft constitution provided more human
rights protections than did the 1945 Constitution. See Adnan Buyung Nasution, The
Aspiration for Constitutional Government in Indonesia: A Socio-Legal Study of
the Indonesian Konstituante, 1956-1959 (Jakarta: Pustaka Sinar Harapan,
1992).

[15] Oei
Tjoe Tat, a Sukarno cabinet minister who led a fact finding mission in 1966,
estimated 78,000 people were killed in 1965-1966. But General Sarwo Edhie
Wibowo, who led the military operation against the communists, told a
parliamentarian delegate in 1989 on his death bed that around three million
people were killed. See Oei Tjoe Tat et al., Memoar Oei Tjoe Tat: Pembantu
Presiden Soekarno (Jakarta: Hasta Mitra, 1995); Tempo, Sarwo Edhie dan
Misteri 1965 (Jakarta: Kepustakaan Populer Gramedia, 2012).

[16] In
Jakarta, a mob attacked and burned a newly built church on April 28, 1969. In
Meulaboh in 1967, national politicians were involved in a parliamentary debate
over a plan of the Methodist church to build a house of worship. In Makassar,
on October 1, 1967, Muslim students organized by the Muslims’ Student
Association (Himpunan Mahasiswa Islam, HMI) attacked nine Protestant churches,
four Catholic churches, one nun dormitory, one academy of theology, one
Catholic student association office and two Catholic schools. The Makassar HMI
was led at the time by chairman Jusuf Kalla who would become Indonesia’s
vice president in 2004. See Mujiburrahman, Feeling Threatened: Muslim-Christian
Relations in Indonesia's New Order (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press,
2006) pp. 29-40. See also, Melissa Crouch, “Implementing the Regulation
on Places of Worship in Indonesia: New Problems, Local Politics and Court
Action,” Asian Studies Review, vol.34, iss.4 (2010), pp. 403-19.

[22] Human
Rights Watch interview with Jeirry Sumampauw, an official of the Communion of
Churches (PGI) in Indonesia, in charge of compiling annual reports about
various abuses against Christians, Jakarta, September 7, 2011. See also the PGI
website www.pgi.or.id
http://st291735.sitekno.com/page/36867/tahun-2005.html (accessed June 25,
2012).

[28]
Robin Bush, “A Snapshot of Muhammadiyah: social change and shifting
markers of identity and values,” a paper presented at the International
Conference on Muhammadiyah (Malang, November 29-December 2, 2012).

[35] Wikileaks,
“Indonesian Biographical and Political Gossip,” cable from the US
Embassy on May 9, 2006,
http://www.cablegatesearch.net/cable.php?id=06JAKARTA5851&q=agung%20fpi%20indonesia%20islam%20laksono%20police%20rizieq%20shihab
(accessed May 3, 2012).

[42] United
Nations, “The List established and maintained by the 1267 Committee with
respect to individuals, groups, undertakings and other entities associated with
Al-Qaida,” updated on June 6, 2012,
http://www.un.org/sc/committees/1267/pdf/AQList.pdf (accessed June 20, 2012).

[51] In
1964, Parisada Hindu Dharma Bali (Bali Hindu Dharma Community), a large Hindu
organization on Bali Island, changed its name to Parisada Hindu Dharma
Indonesia (Indonesia Hindu Dharma Community), reflecting subsequent efforts to
define Hinduism as a national, rather than just a Balinese, concern. See
Ministry of Religious Affairs, “Appendix 1: Population in Indonesia by
Religion,” 2010.

[54] A
Mongol force of 20,000 soldiers sent to Java in 1293 to punish King Kertanegara
for his insolence had profound, if unintended, consequences.
Kertanegara’s son-in-law, Wijaya, was able to manipulate the Chinese
troops to his own advantage. Thousands of Chinese soldiers reportedly died in
Java, but many must have been captured by the Javanese or stayed behind
voluntarily. This episode not only marked the rise of the new dynasty of
Majapahit, but also brought a major injection of Chinese technology to Java. It
was considered to be the first migration of Chinese on Java Island. See Lynn
Pan, The Encyclopedia of the Chinese Overseas (Singapore: Chinese Heritage
Centre, 2006) p. 50.

[55]
The first large Chinese business in the Dutch Indies was Oei Tiong Ham Concern,
established in Semarang, Java Island, in 1863. In 1890, young Oei Tiong Ham
took over the firm, building it into one of the largest firms in Southeast
Asia. It’s involved in trade of rubber,
kapok, gambir, tapioca and coffee. He died in 1924 in Singapore. See Kunio
Yoshihara, Oei Tiong,Ham
Concern: the first business empire of Southeast Asia (Kyoto University:
Center for Southeast Asian Studies, 1989).

[61]MUI fatwa No. 11/Munas VII/MUI/15/2005 signed July 29,
2005 by fatwa commission members Ma’ruf Amin (chairman) and Hasanudin
(secretary) as well as by plenary conference members Umar Shihab (chairman) and
Din Syamsuddin (secretary).

[64]“Indonesia: ‘Restrictive bill threatens
freedoms of association, expression and religion,’ warn UN rights
experts,” Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, February 14,
2013, http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=12989&LangID=E (accessed February 14, 2013). “The Bill on Mass
Organizations imposes the requirement on the founding of associations not to be
in contradiction with Pancasila - the official State philosophy in Indonesia
that consecrates the belief ‘in the One and Only God’. It also
stipulates that organizations have the duty to maintain religious
values.”

[69] See
Musdah Mulia, “The Problem of Implementation of the Rights of Religious
Freedom In Indonesia,” paper submitted to the EU-Indonesia Conference,
“Human Rights and Faith in Focus,” held by European Union and
Nahdlatul Ulama in Jakarta, October 24-25, 2011. Musdah Mulia is the director
of the Indonesian Conference on Religion and Peace.

[70]
See Suryadharma Ali, Paper presented at the Work Meeting Minister of Religious
Affairs with Commission VIII House of Representatives, Jakarta, February 9,
2011.

[87] Some
Muslims have published extensively about fears of
“Christianization” in Indonesia. For instance, a video called
“Save Maryam,”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6E9NcbVa4FU&fb_source=message, uploaded in
July 2012, contends that “two million Muslims leave Islam every
year” in Indonesia to become Christians, though no basis is provided for
this claim.

[88] Internally,
Suharto’s Education and Culture Minister Daoed Joesoef, himself a devout
Muslim, protested the 1969 decree. In his 2006 memoir Joesoef wrote of his
conversation with Suharto about the decree. He said he told Suharto that the
decree is not going to create “religious harmony.” He argued it
would be made “a legal platform for sectarian extremists” to
repress minorities in Indonesia and would create inequality among Indonesian
citizens. Joesoef asked Suharto to cancel the decree. Suharto, however, did not
respond to Joesoef’s suggestion. In his memoir, Joesoef regretted that
Christian bureaucrats and politicians did not speak up against the decree. See
Daoed Joesoef, Dia Dan Aku: Memoar Pencari Kebenaran (Jakarta: Kompas, 2006),
pp. 743-47.

[105] “MUI
fatwa No. 11/Munas VII/MUI/15/2005” signed on July 29, 2005 by fatwa
commission members Ma’ruf Amin (chairman) and Hasanudin (secretary) as
well as by plenary conference members Umar Shihab (chairman) and Din Syamsuddin
(secretary).

[112]
Human Rights Working Group et. al., “List of Regulation that Prohibit
Ahmadiyya Congregation Activity until 2011,” in a report submitted to the
UN Human Rights Council for the Universal Periodic Review of Indonesia in
Geneva on May 23, 2012. The report was jointly written by Human Rights Working
Group, Jakarta Legal Aid Institute, the Institute for Policy Research and Advocacy,
Setara Institute, Indonesia Legal Resource Center, Wahid Institute, and the
Center for Marginalized Communities Studies.

[117] Ministry
of Religious Affairs, The Policy of the Government on the Issue of Ahmadiyaa
in Indonesia, (Jakarta: 2011.) The 44-page booklet contains the 2008 decree
and a joint circular on the implementation of the decree. Prof. Atho Mudzhar,
the head of the Office of Research, Development and Training at the Ministry of
Religious Affairs, wrote the preface.

[120]
Rumadi Ahmad of the Wahid Institute said the focus on “religious
harmony” is a threat to religious minorities. “It would be better
if the government were to propose a bill on religious freedom,” (A
statement at in a Wahid Institute press conference, in Jakarta, December 29,
2011). Nathan Setiabudi, who chaired the Communion of Churches in Indonesia in
2000-2005, said that by emphasizing “religious harmony” the bill
would provide a pretext for law enforcement agencies to pressure religious
minorities to stop religious practices that might infuriate the majority (Human
Rights Watch interview with Nathan Setiabudi, Jakarta, June 22, 2012).

[121]
In 1978, Deliar Noer, a Muslim scholar, argued that Christians do not feel any
need for such a ministry because they have their own organizations, e.g., the
Communion of Churches in Indonesia and the Bishops' Conference of Indonesia
(Konferensi Waligereja Indonesia, KWI). “Protestants and Catholics in Indonesia
have received substantial support from abroad and foreign missions also have
direct access to Indonesian territories. … Only the Muslims felt the need
for such a ministry,” he wrote. See Deliar Noer, Administration of Islam
in Indonesia (Jakarta: Equinox, 2010) p. 23.

[122] During
President Suharto’s rule, the Ministry of Religious Affairs was at times
headed by respected scholars including Mukti Ali (1973-1978), Munawir Sjadzali
(1988-1993), and Quraish Shihab (1998). They did not produce discriminatory
regulations and focused on conducting research on religious life in Indonesia.
Many of these scholars have left the ministry over the last decade. In 2002,
Komaruddin Hidayat of the Jakarta Islamic University wrote that the Ministry of
Religious Affairs should be changed from a “sectarian institution,”
which favors Muslims, to an institution that treats all faiths equally. Djohan
Effendi, who used to head the research division at the ministry, said.
“The ministry has become a state within a state. It pretends to be able
to deal with many things but it has miserably failed.” See Luthfi
Assyaukanie, Ideologi Islam Dan Utopia: Tiga Model Negara Demokrasi Di
Indonesia (Jakarta: Freedom Institute, 2011).

[139]
Human Rights Watch interview with Ibrahim Khalil, a prosecutor of Alexander An,
Sijunjung, April 9, 2012. Khalil is also the chief intelligence of the
Dharmasraya prosecutor office in Pulau Punjung, the capital of Dharmasraya
regency. He also heads the Bakor Pakem office.

[141]
MUI has a sprawling network that makes it difficult to know its actual
financial situation. It differs from one province to another, and from one
regency to another. In an interview, Abdussomad Bukhori, the chairman of East
Java MUI, said that MUI leaders only receive an “honorarium” and
they expect no pay. See Hidayatullah, “Jadi Ketum MUI Karena Panggilan
Nurani,” April 21, 2011 http://hidayatullah.com/read/16539/21/04/2011/jadi-ketum-mui-karena-panggilan-nurani.html
(accessed June 22, 2012). Syibli E. Sarjaya, the secretary of the Banten MUI,
said that without government funding it might not operate properly. See
Okezone, “KH Syibli: Tanpa Hibah, MUI Berjalan Terseok-seok,”
September 22, 2011, http://news.okezone.com/read/2011/09/22/337/505983/kh-syibli-tanpa-hibah-mui-berjalan-terseok-seok
(accessed June 23, 2012). In Siak regency, Riau province, the government helps
each district with IDR 5 million (around US$600) to help pay preachers during
the Ramadan fasting month. See Hallo Riau, “Bantuan MUI, Setiap Kecamatan
Rp5 Juta,” July 26, 2011, http://www.halloriau.com/read-otonomi-12833-2011-07-26-bantuan-mui-setiap-kecamatan-rp5-juta-.html
(accessed June 23, 2012).

[142] There
are four cabinet members on the MUI board: Minister of Religious Affairs
Suryadharma Ali (also the chairman of the United Development Party);
Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs Hatta Rajasa (also the chairman of
the National Mandate Party and an in-law to President Susilo Bambang
Yudhoyono); Minister for National Education Muhammad Nuh; and Minister for
Social Affairs Salim Segaf al-Jufri. Indonesia’s best-selling novelist
Andrea Hirata also sits on the MUI’s Islamic art and culture commission
along with movie star Yenny Rahman, comedian Cici Tegal, and model Ratih
Sanggarwati. See MUI, “Susunan Pengurus MUI Pusat,” website. May 8,
2009, http://www.mui.or.id/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=52&Itemid=54
(accessed June 23, 2012).

[150] MUI
fatwa No. 11/Munas VII/MUI/15/2005 signed on July 29, 2005 by MUI’s fatwa
commission members Ma’ruf Amin (chairman) and Hasanudin (secretary) as
well as by plenary conference members Umar Shihab (chairman) and Din Syamsuddin
(secretary).

[155] They
included: Yusman Roy, a Muslim preacher reciting a Muslim prayer in Indonesian
Malay; Lia Eden, M. Abdul Rachman, and Wahyu Andito Putro Wibisono, three
leaders of a spiritual group named the “Eden Community” in Jakarta,
who declared that Lia Eden had received revelations from the Angel Gabriel;
Andreas Guntur, the leader of the spiritual group Amanat Keagungan Ilahi, for
drawing upon certain verses of the Quran but not abiding to other conventional
Islamic teachings; Dedi Priadi and Gerry Lufthy Yudistira, father and son, for
joining the Al-Qiyadah sufi sect in Padang court, West Sumatra; and Tajul
Muluk, a Shia cleric in Sampang, Madura island.

[161]
During the search period, August 2011 until December 2012, Human Rights Watch
made calls to members of 10 FKUB offices in North Sumatra, Riau, West Java,
Jakarta, Central Java, and West Nusa Tenggara. None of them have either
Ahmadiyah or Shia members.

[196]
On June 7-13, 2012, a delegation of Singkil churches visited Jakarta. They also
met Human Rights Watch and presented a 50-page document entitled “The
Closure of 20 Houses of Worship in Aceh Singkil Regency.” The Singkil
government sealed these houses of worship on May 1, May 3 and May 8, 2012. The
oldest church, GKPPD Kuta Kerangan, was built in 1932 during Dutch colonial
rule. Some were built during the Japanese occupation in 1942-45. The newest
one, the Indonesian Evangelical Mission Church (Gereja Misi Injili Indonesia,
GMII), was built in 2003.

[202]
In 1976, a Shia cleric, Husein al-Habsyi, established the Islam Pesantren
Foundation (Yayasan Pesantren Islam, YAPI) . Its Al-Ma’hadul Islami high
school was considered to be a class-A school by the Islamic Education
Accreditation Office in East Java (Badan Akreditasi Provinsi Sekolah/Madrasah
Jawa Timur) http://www.ban-sm.or.id/provinsi/jawa-timur/akreditasi/view/190601
(accessed November 21, 2011)

[229]
Human Rights Watch interview with an eighth grader in a public junior high
school, Campaka sub-district, Sukadana, September 14, 2011.

[230] The
Ahmadi man from Manislor district in Kuningan regency was barred from
registering his marriage at the Manislor office of the Ministry of Religious
Affairs. Human Rights Watch interview with the Ahmadi man, Jakarta, September
16, 2012.

[234] In
June 1964, the Kuningan Bakor Pakem declared marriages of members of Agama Sunda
Djawa (Java Sundanese Religion), a major Sunda Wiwitan organization, to be
illegal. The Kuningan prosecutor’s office later detained nine believers,
which included Djatikusumah, a priest, and eight young grooms, who allegedly
were married using Sundanese ritual. Anticipating increased hostilities, their
leader and Djatikusumah’s father, Tedja Buana, decided to leave the
organization, joining the Catholic church and inviting the church to use their
Sunda house of worship. His move prompted 5,000 Sunda Wiwitan believers to
convert to Catholicism. “It’s an important decision. My grandfather
saved thousands of our members from being accused as atheists. We can’t
imagine what would happened if he didn’t do it,” said Dewi Kanti, referring
to massacres of the communists in 1965-1966. But in March 1981, Djatikusumah,
the eldest son of Tedja Buana, declared that he was leaving the Catholic church
and returning to his native faith. His move prompted 1,600 believers to
reconvert to Sunda Wiwitan. The Catholic cathedral was re-converted to a Sunda
Wiwitan house of worship. See Iman C.Sukmana, Menuju Gereja Yang Semakin
Pribumi: Analisis Konflik Internal Dalam Gereja Eks-Ads (Jakarta: Penerbit
Universitas Atma Jaya, 2011).

[236] The
Suharto regime officially discriminated against Confucianism between 1979 and
1998. But the discrimination had started much earlier with the banning of
Chinese characters, Chinese-language books, and Chinese-language schools. See
Leo Suryadinata, “Buddhism and Confucianism in Indonesia” in Tim
Lindsey and Helen Pausacker eds., Chinese Indonesians: Remembering,
Distorting, Forgetting (Singapore: ISEAS 2005).

[245] The
Rukun Tetangga, or Neighborhood Association, first set up during the Japanese
occupation during World War II, is the lowest level administrative body in
Indonesia. Each Rukun Tetangga has 10 to 20 families. Each Rukun Warga, or
Citizen Association, consists of around 5 to 10 Rukun Tetangga.

[249]
Police are working with Kontras, a human rights organization in Jakarta, to
develop a police manual on dealing with religious freedom violations. The
program is assisted by the UK government. Human Rights Watch met five
Indonesian National Police generals in Jakarta on November 9, 2011, and
discussed the initiative, among other topics.

[253] “Formal
Declaration” signed by Syahroni and Iwan Purwanto on June 2, 2011 with 15
witnesses, including nine Muslim leaders and six government officials. It was
also signed by Dwi Sulistyawan, the deputy police chief of East Lampung. The
six officials were Police Commissioner Medi Iswanda, Police Adjunct
Commissioner Julianto PA, Police Second Inspector M. Faisal, Police Adjunct
Commissioner Waryono, First Brigadier Joni Paamsyah, and Second Brigadier
Budiyono.

[254] Omben
police chief Moh. Sofini signed the petition as did his three subordinates:
Sudirman, Suncamin, and Sudirmanto. The “Surat Pernyataan” or
“Formal Declaration,” dated February 26, 2006, was signed by 40
clerics in Sampang and Pamekasan regencies as well as the four police officers,
dated February 26, 2006.

[265] The
shahadah is the basic creed of Islam that must be recited under oath: "I
testify there are no deities other than God alone and I testify that Mohammad
is the Messenger of God." Muslims must repeat the shahadah in prayer, and
non-Muslims wishing to convert to Islam are required to recite the creed.
Ahmadiyah also recite the shahadah.

[267] Human
Rights Watch interview with Ahmadiyah woman, 35, of Cikeusik village, Jakarta,
September 10, 2011. Sarimie is an Indonesian brand of instant noodles; the term
is used derogatorily for people who change their religion due to material
incentives, for instance, better schools, financial assistance, or food.

[276]
The “Surat Pernyataan” or “Formal Declaration,” dated
February 26, 2006, was signed by 40 clerics in Sampang and Pamekasan regencies
as well as four police officers of the Omben district police station. The 40
clerics all have titles “kyai haji,” which means that all of them
had gone to Mecca and Medina as pilgrims (“haji”) and all are
teachers at Islamic boarding schools (“kyai”).

[279]
It’s a view commonly aired by Sunni clerics in various documents issued
in 2006-2012. Minister of Religious Affairs Suryadharma Ali reiterated this
view when having a meeting with the parliament on September 5, 2012. Ali said,
“The best solution for what has been going on in there is dialogue. Many
things can happen after a dialogue. We had an experience where the Ahmadis
[...] converted to mainstream Islam after dialogue.” It was a reference
to Ahmadis who were pressured to become Sunnis. See “Shia conversion is
solution: Minister,” Jakarta Post, September 6, 2012, http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2012/09/06/shia-conversion-solution-minister.html
(accessed September 9, 2012).

[287]On April 14, 2011, the election commission announced its final tally:
Sukarmis won with 82,504 votes (54percent) and Mursini received 69,600 (45
percent). See Riau Terkini, “Pleno KPU Kuansing Tegaskan Kemenangan
Sukarmis,” April 14, 2011.

[288] The
St. Antonius church catechist, Petrus Sakur, who witnessed the attack, said he
believes the arson was in retaliation against the Batak association in Kuantan
Singingi for having openly supported Sukarmis. Human Rights Watch interview
with Petrus Sakur,Taluk Kuantan, October 21, 2011.

[312]
See: Human Rights Council, Universal Periodic Review on Indonesia,
“Report of the Working Group on the Universal Periodic Review:
Indonesia,” Geneva, July 5, 2012. Marty Natalegawa’s comment was
recorded on point 76 p.10.

[322] European
Parliament resolution on Indonesia including attacks on minorities, July 7,
2011, http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//TEXT+TA+P7-TA-2011-0341+0+DOC+XML+V0//EN&language=EN(
accessed May 8 2012).

[323] Religions
for Peace, a YouTube video of the January 25-27, 2010 conference at Hotel
Borobudur, Jakarta,

[327] For a description of powers currently available to the president,
see International Crisis Group, “Indonesia: Defying the State, Asia
Briefing no. 138,” August 30, 2012, p. 18.

[328]In
June 2009, Amnesty International published a number of recommendations on the
Indonesian National Police, a number of which are relevant to addressing
religion-based violence. See Amnesty International, “Unfinished Business:
Police Accountability In Indonesia,” June 24, 2009.